President Trump's latest Executive Order is not a solution to homelessness—it is a dangerous escalation of cruelty masquerading as public safety.

"Ending Crime and Disorder on America's Streets," prioritizes forced institutionalization, criminalization of poverty, and the dismantling of proven housing-first strategies over real solutions. This order abandons compassion, evidence, and constitutional principles.

The order’s directives seek to weaponize federal funding to coerce cities and states into adopting punitive policies that target the most vulnerable among us: those suffering from mental illness, substance use disorder, and economic hardship. It seeks to reverse judicial protections, expand civil commitment without due process, and defund harm reduction strategies that save lives and provide a path to treatment. It even allows homeless shelters to share health data with law enforcement—an Orwellian breach of privacy that will deter people from seeking help.

For 35 years, Housing Works has utilized principles and evidence-based approaches rooted in the Housing First model to successfully house thousands of individuals and families experiencing homelessness. We condemn this order’s framing of homelessness as “endemic vagrancy” rather than a failure of housing and healthcare policies. This is a deliberate attempt to dehumanize and scapegoat that ignores decades of research showing that housing-first models and voluntary treatment yield far better outcomes than coercion and incarceration. Instead, it doubles down on failed tactics that will push more people into the shadows, into jails, and into graveyards.

This Executive Order is rooted in archaic, stigmatizing, and racist narratives about homelessness. It is a cynical ploy to stoke fear, distract from systemic failures, and punish those who have already been failed by society.

The Trump administration seeks to return to disproven, expensive, and ineffective policies that make the experience of homelessness harder to escape —while simultaneously seeking to defund real solutions to extreme poverty like housing assistance, health insurance, and nutrition.

We must reject this order in its entirety and demand policies rooted in dignity, housing, healthcare, and human rights.

Housing Works’ organizing, advocacy and delivery of vital services stands as a safeguard for our communities and our democracy.

We will fight back and speak out against this Executive Order and funding cuts.