Donald Trump’s Executive Order, Ending Crime and Disorder on America’s Streets, calls for encampment removals, involuntary commitment of those who are unhoused and mentally ill, and denies funding to grantees that fail to enforce prohibitions on camping and loitering. In response, Governor Newsom said that Trump was just grandstanding and that California was already doing what’s in the Executive Order. Mayor Lurie did not comment.
Just the facts:
- Project 2025 called for an end to Housing First strategies to replace them with criminal enforcement and involuntary treatment first strategies.
- Trump’s Executive Order, Ending Crime and Disorder on America’s Streets, calls for encampment removals, involuntary commitment, and defunding cities that fail to criminalize homelessness
- In response, Governor Newsom asserted that California is already doing what’s in Trump’s the Executive Order.
- 26 studies show Housing First programs decreased homelessness by 88% and improved housing stability by 41%, compared to Treatment First programs.
- A recent study shows that encampment bans and other policies that criminalize homelessness don’t keep people from living on the street or reduce homelessness.
Governor Newsom has done photo ops showing him personally clearing encampments, and he has also threatened funding for cities that do not do the same. San Francisco was also already doing much of the same long before Trump’s order. In June 2024, the Supreme Court ruled in Grants Pass v. Johnson that cities can legally arrest people for camping, even if they have no place to go. San Francisco backed the case, and then-Mayor Breed vowed to get “a lot more aggressive” with people living on the streets. District attorney Brooke Jenkins vowed to make homeless people “less comfortable.” Mayor Lurie has only escalated the crackdown under Trump.
Housing First strategies are proven to work to reduce homelessness. Yet Trump, Newsom, and Lurie continue to treat poverty and homelessness as personal failings that need punishment, rather than as symptoms of an unjust and broken system that needs fixing. Advocates have condemned Trump’s order for criminalizing poverty instead of confronting the real causes like lack of housing, healthcare, and support. Yet neither Governor Newsom nor Mayor Lurie have joined in that criticism, instead echoing much of the Executive Order in their words and actions.
