Advocates fear Trump's crackdown in D.C. will put many homeless people behind bars
A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
National Guard troops deployed on the streets of Washington last night alongside hundreds of federal agents and metropolitan police.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
President Trump says the goal is to make the city safer. One part of the plan that's coming into focus is how the White House intends to treat people living on the streets and in homeless camps. Advocates fear many of them will wind up behind bars.
MARTÍNEZ: NPR's Brian Mann joins us now. So, Brian, what have we learned about how this crackdown will affect people in the nation's capital who lack housing?
BRIAN MANN, BYLINE: Yeah, NPR's Tamara Keith was able to ask that question directly yesterday at that White House press briefing. Where will these homeless people go? And here's how spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt answered.
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KAROLINE LEAVITT: Homeless individuals will be given the option to leave their encampment, to be taken to a homeless shelter, to be offered addiction or mental health services. And if they refuse, they will be susceptible to fines or to jail time.
MANN: Now, it's that last part, A - the punishment part - sending people to jail that worries many experts.
MARTÍNEZ: But if people are offered a place in a shelter, I mean, doesn't that mean they can avoid jail?
MANN: Yeah, people I've been speaking with here in Washington who've been trying for years to reduce homelessness say it's not that simple. They say there just aren't enough shelters for people living on the streets. Jesse Rabinowitz is with a group called the National Homelessness Law Center.
JESSE RABINOWITZ: There are very few beds available. There are a handful of shelter beds available in far-flung parts of the city, often in places where people don't want to be.
MANN: And experts I've been speaking to also say shelters aren't a permanent fix. For many Americans, apartments and homes are unaffordable. Even after staying for a while in shelters, many people wind up back on the streets and potentially now behind bars.
MARTÍNEZ: And President Trump also says he wants to force homeless people with addiction and mental health challenges to get treatment. Here again, though, I mean, if they don't agree, they could go to jail. So, I mean, do experts think that kind of pressure is a good idea?
MANN: I put that question to Dr. Stephen Taylor. He heads the American Society of Addiction Medicine. And Taylor told me a lot of people who live on the streets with addiction are really ill, and he thinks crackdowns like this can actually do a lot more harm than good.
STEPHEN TAYLOR: It is a chronic illness. It's not the kind of thing where you sweep people up, you get them better and then they're cured forever and that's it.
MANN: And here, again, experts say there also just aren't enough treatment beds for people with these really complicated health problems.
MARTÍNEZ: Yeah. I mean, homelessness is obviously a national issue. Is the president's move to break up homeless camps in Washington something we might see somewhere else?
MANN: Yeah, Leavitt said yesterday dozens of homeless camps here in the city have already been broken up since March. And Trump made it plain he wants what he's doing in Washington to happen in lots of other cities. I spoke about this with Ann Oliva, who heads the National Alliance to End Homelessness. She says Trump's harsh talk is already shifting the way Americans treat people who can't afford housing.
ANN OLIVA: We've already started to see that take hold in communities that criminalize people just because they don't have a safe place to sleep.
MANN: Advocates say they think Trump is tapping into real frustration among Americans about the number of people living on the streets and the fact that these camps keep growing.
MARTÍNEZ: But if experts don't think that Trump's get-tough approach will work, what do they think that will reduce homelessness?
MANN: Yeah, they say the answer is a lot more affordable housing, more affordable health care for people with mental illness and addiction. But they say this crackdown is actually happening at a time when the Trump administration is cutting things like Medicaid, also trying to scale back programs that help low-income renters stay in their apartments.
MARTÍNEZ: That's NPR's Brian Mann in Washington, D.C. Brian, thank you.
MANN: Thanks, A.
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