Today as more and more of us find ourselves ‘a paycheck away’ from the streets, homelessness is a death sentence for many and a glaring and appalling absurdity in this richest and most powerful nation in the world – one that has lost its heart and soul as the billionaire class plays royalty and as millions struggle and fall.
Trump’s executive order— “Ending Crime in America’s Streets” — to incarcerate homeless people reverses laws that were made to protect against involuntary institutionalization. This is being done under the false pretense that homeless people are all insane or addicts. It strips away people’s hard-won civil rights, and doesn’t account for the lack of shelter and treatment beds now available. In fact the Trump regime is cutting funding to programs known to help people stabilize, get real treatment and get off the streets.
It pretends that anyone who can’t afford housing is a criminal, and the things they need to do to sustain themselves are treated as criminal acts. It sweeps with one mean broom anyone who has fallen out of this failing and unjust economy, out of sight and out of mind, or dead. Plans on both national and local levels—some predating Trump–are for the involuntary incarceration of unsheltered people into prison-camp-like detention centers, many of which would enforce unpaid labor. Utah has already set up such a camp, out on the outskirts of the city, to the outrage of advocates for people’s human rights.
A woman sleeps on the bare cement of a downtown San Francisco street / Photo Sarah Menefee
At the same time, HUD is making deep cuts to supportive housing programs, shifting funds into temporary shelters and incarceration. This could put tens of thousands of people at risk of losing their housing, at the same time as inflation, rising rents and loss of jobs are driving ever more working people onto the streets.
All this is happening at a time when almost half the people in this country are estimated to be at or near poverty level, with homelessness rising 18% in the past year, and family homelessness showing a 40% rise; when tax cuts and giveaways to the billionaire class continue and the fraying safety net is attacked and destroyed.
According to the National Alliance to End Homelessness “More people with disabilities, children, and older adults are experiencing homelessness. Proposed cuts to the Continuum of Care program; cuts to other social safety nets like Medicaid; and punitive policies like fining, citing, arresting, and jailing people will make it harder to rehouse these populations. This will make homelessness worse and harm both public health and public safety.”
Many families and individuals who are being priced out of housing are moving into RVs and other vehicles to maintain some kind of shelter, and cities are responding by stepping up the ticketing and towing of their homes. At the same time, people who live in the streets are attacked, their tents and possessions stolen, and are ticketed under anti-lodging and ‘sit-lie’ laws, tickets that lead to warrants and jail. Not being able to afford unaffordable rent, even when working full-time, can land a person in jail, in prison-like camps, and uncounted many every year to death by exposure.
People everywhere are standing up and protesting these grave attacks on our rights, understanding that what they do to the least of us they do to us. ‘First they came for..’ All of us must organize not just for the rights of the homeless not to be terrorized and incarcerated, but for a society that puts human needs first, including the right to decent housing. This is the only morality worth its name.
San Francisco poet and organizer Sarah Menefee is a long-time homeless rights activist. She is the Homeless Desk on the People’s Tribune Editorial Board, and a founding member of such organizations as the San Francisco Union of the Homeless, Homes Not Jails and 'First they came for the homeless’. Known for her poetry about the streets, her latest collections are Winter Rose, Sign and Holy Eel.
