Trump signs executive order to reform homelessness policy, ease street removals

By Asiye Latife Yilmaz

ISTANBUL (AA) – US President Donald Trump signed an executive order to reform the country’s homelessness policy, making it easier for cities and states to remove homeless people from the streets and place them into treatment programs.

The order, issued Thursday, seeks to address what the administration called “endemic vagrancy, disorderly behavior, sudden confrontations and violent attacks.”

Trump directed Attorney General Pam Bondi to “reverse judicial precedents and end consent decrees” that restrict state and local governments from committing individuals who pose a risk to themselves or others.

The order stated that the majority of people living on the streets suffer from drug addiction, mental illness or both, according to the White House.

The order instructs agencies to ensure that people “camping on streets and causing public disorder” are relocated into treatment centers or other appropriate facilities.

“Shifting these individuals into long-term institutional settings for humane treatment is the most proven way to restore public order,” the order states.

Bondi is also directed to work with the secretaries of Health and Human Services, Housing and Urban Development, and Transportation to prioritize federal grants for jurisdictions that enforce laws prohibiting urban camping, open drug use, loitering and squatting, and track sex offender locations.