Executive Order 175: a firm yet compassionate strategy to fight the chaos of vagrancy on our streets

Photo credit: @thebizzleeffect.

President Trump issued Executive Order Number 175 last week. It was signed without much fanfare, but it may end up providing valuable momentum in the effort to effectively deal with our nation’s epidemic of vagrancy fueled by untreated mental illness and drug addiction.

The Order, entitled “Ending Crime and Disorder of America’s Streets” directs three federal departments (Justice, Human Services, Housing and Urban Development), to leverage criminal and civil law, and federal funding to address “endemic vagrancy, disorderly behavior, sudden confrontations, and violent attacks” that are making “our cities unsafe.”

The Order stresses that “surrendering our cities and citizens to disorder and fear is neither compassionate to the homeless nor other citizens.”

A fact sheet accompanying the Order listed highlights of the order:

• The Order directs the Attorney General to reverse judicial precedents and end consent decrees that limit State and local governments’ ability to commit individuals on the streets who are a risk to themselves or others.
• The Order requires the Attorney General to work with the Secretary of Health and Human Services, Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, and the Secretary of Transportation to prioritize grants for states and municipalities that enforce prohibitions on open illicit drug use, urban camping and loitering, and urban squatting, and track the location of sex offenders.
• The Order redirects funding to ensure that individuals camping on streets and causing public disorder and that are suffering from serious mental illness or addiction are moved into treatment centers, assisted outpatient treatment, or other facilities.
• The Order ensures discretionary grants for substance use- disorder prevention, treatment, and recovery do not fund drug injection sites or illicit drug use.
• The Order stops sex offenders who receive homelessness assistance from being housed with children and allows programs to exclusively house women and children.

A significant provision in the Order promotes the use of civil commitment to forcibly remove those suffering from chronic mental illness and substance abuse from the street and into treatment facilities. Allowing those suffering from chronic mentally illness and chemical dependency, who have demonstrated an inability to care for themselves, to remain in unsheltered homelessness is neither humane nor compassionate. 

It is interesting that some of the more “progressive” states, such as California, Oregon, and New York, have also found value in the idea of forcibly committing those who have shown an inability to care for themselves. This counters decades of activism that has advocated for “community-based” care — a movement that has led to the closure of many mental health and substance abuse treatment facilities, and has spectacularly failed both those it has meant to help and society as a whole.

The Order also reflects some of the newfound zero-tolerance philosophy behind efforts to eliminate homeless encampments in Minneapolis and elsewhere. The philosophy is based on the understanding that allowing encampments to form only enables the destructive behaviors of drug addiction and untreated mental illness that perpetuate so much of the homelessness that exists.

Executive Order 175 represents a commitment from the federal government to support efforts to address decades of failure around untreated chemical dependency, mental illness, and associated vagrancy. Such a commitment shows actual compassion, and it’s just what our country needs.