President-elect Donald Trump has a strategy to tackle the homeless crisis at the national level. He pitched his plan during his campaign, but the question now is: Will it happen? And if it does, how will it affect communities in the Northwest?
Trump outlined his vision last year on his “Agenda 47” website.
“Our once-great cities have become unlivable, unsanitary nightmares surrendered to the homeless, the drug-addicted and the violent and dangerously deranged,” Trump said.
“The homeless have no right to turn every park and sidewalk into a place for them to squat and do drugs. Americans should not have to step over piles of needles and waste as they walk down the street.”
Trump says he wants to work with states to ban urban camping wherever possible and create large “tent cities” on inexpensive land where people could access doctors and social workers.
“Violators of these bans will be arrested, but they will be given the option to accept treatment and services if they are willing to be rehabilitated,” Trump said. “Many of them don’t want that, but we will give them the option.”
Trump has talked a lot about what’s happening in West Coast cities, including Portland.
Now that he’s president-elect, his plan could be put into play in a matter of months, pushing aside housing-first policies for his treatment-first model.
That’s causing a lot of anxiety among local homeless advocates.
“I think when President Trump gets around to pushing forward on this agenda item, that he’s going to find a lot of sympathetic ears on the West Coast to this sort of lock ’em all up plan that he toyed with during his first administration,” said Jimmy Jones, the executive director of the Mid-Willamette Valley Community Action Agency, a Salem-based social services organization.
He says this isn’t a Trump problem. Jones says it matters less who’s driving the car when it’s headed down the same road, and that road is criminalizing homelessness.
“It’s very consistent with what the Portland leadership has tried to do for the last couple of years, and I think that may be very shocking to folks who might not think that their local government was aligned with somebody that they never would have voted for under any condition at all in their head,” said Jones. “In terms of practical policy implementation, it’s virtually identical to the work that’s already been done.”
Jones and other advocates in Oregon are worried that House Bill 3115, which lawmakers passed in 2021, will be repealed. The law was meant to enshrine a legal standard set by federal judges that cities and towns could not ban people from sleeping outside unless shelter space is available as an alternative.
But this summer, the U.S. Supreme Court sided with the city of Grants Pass, finding that camping bans do not amount to cruel and unusual punishment under the Eighth Amendment.
Since then, Democrats have joined Republicans in calling for changes to state camping laws.
“Our city is suffering right now. You know, we’re having an identity crisis,” said Portland Mayor-elect Keith Wilson.
Wilson ran on an ambitious promise to end unsheltered homelessness within the first year of his administration. He wants to set up a network of night and day shelters in buildings like churches and community centers, offering meals, showers, laundry and social services.
Wilson says it will immediately improve livability and give homeless providers the breathing room they need to work on long-term solutions to keep people off the streets.
Wilson shared what he thinks about President-elect Trump’s strategy.
“It makes me cringe. When you aggravate misery, you just create more misery. We have to recognize that these are our brothers and sisters. I mean, my brother was addicted and homeless, and I’m caring for him right now,” said Wilson. “I can’t imagine you doing that. That creates an amount of suffering on a magnitude that’s never before seen.”
Jimmy Jones hopes Portland will change course under Wilson’s leadership.
“I’m very encouraged by that language,” said Jones.
But Jones knows elected officials in every city and town across Oregon and other states are under a lot of pressure to fix livability issues.
“Folks are just deeply and gravely uncomfortable by observing other people’s poverty. They don’t want to see it. They don’t want it to be visible. They’d rather it goes somewhere else. And these solutions take time, they take patience, they take commitment, they take smart public policy choices,” said Jones.
Jones says of all the items on President-elect Trump’s agenda, this might be the one with the most buy-in from the right and the left.
He warns the message may sound good, but the methods will be brutal.
Jones says the medicine is worse than the cure.
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