(San Francisco) Democratic leaders and defenders of homeless people criticize a decree signed this week by President Donald Trump, aimed at withdrawing people from the street, potentially by intervening them in psychiatric care or drug addiction centers without their consent.
Donald Trump asked some of his ministers to finance cities that fight against outdoor drugs and camps, in order to strengthen the feeling of residents. Doing nothing is not being compassionate, specifies the decree.
“Placing these people in long-term care establishments for human treatment is the most effective way to restore public order,” read the decree.
Roaming has become a larger problem in recent years, with the increase in housing cost, especially in states such as California, where the number of dwellings is insufficient to meet demand. At the same time, drug addiction and overdoses exploded thanks to the availability of cheap and powerful fentanyl.
The president’s decree could target progressive cities like San Francisco, Los Angeles and New York, which Donald Trump considers too lax about the living conditions in their streets. But many concepts have already been proposed or tested in California, where Governor Gavin Newsom and the Democratic mayors have been working for years to get people out of the street and bring them to undergo treatment.
Last year, the United States Supreme Court facilitated the dismantling of camps by cities, even if their inhabitants have nowhere to go.
However, defenders of the rights of people in homelessness say that Donald Trump’s new decree is vague, punitive and will not effectively end homelessness.
Mr. Newsom asked cities to clean the camps and injected more funds into programs to processing outbuildings and mental disorders.
Friday, his office said that Donald Trump’s decree was based on harmful stereotypes and focused more on “the creation of major disruptive titles and the settling of accounts”.
“But her imitation (even poorly executed) is the highest form of flattery,” said spokeswoman Tara Gallegos in a press release, referring to the President’s call to strategies already implemented in California.
Prison terms in San Jose
The mayor of San Francisco, Daniel Lurie, also stressed the importance of clean streets and ordered to prohibit people in homelessness from living in autocaravans and encourage residents to accept the city’s accommodation offers. In Silicon Valley, the mayor of San Jose, Matt Mahan, recently promoted a change in the policy that makes a person liable to a prison sentence if they refuse three accommodation offers.
Donald Trump’s decree is responsible for the general prosecutor PAM Bondi and the Secretaries for Health, Housing and Transport to prioritize subsidies to States and Local Communities which apply the prohibitions for outdoor drug consumption and camps.
Devon Kurtz, director of public security policies at the Cicero Institute, a conservative political group who defended several provisions of the decree, explained that his organization was delighted with this decree.
He recognized that California has already undertaken to prohibit camps since the decision of the Supreme Court. But he added that Donald Trump’s decree is strengthening this development, Kurtz added.
“It is a clear message addressed to these communities which were still somewhat embarrassed by this change in major policy,” he concluded.
Steve Berg, responsible for policies at the National Alliance to end the homeless, however described as waves certain parts of the decree. He said the United States had abandoned forced institutionalization decades ago because it was too expensive and raised moral and legal concerns.
“The problem with this decree is not so much the involvement of the police, but rather what they ask them to do, namely to lock up people by force,” said Berg. This is not the right approach to combating roaming. »»
The mayor of Los Angeles, the most populous city in California, disagrees with Newsom and Trump administrations on the issue of roaming. Democrat mayor Karen Bass opposes punitive raids and affirms that the city has reduced roaming by working with the people concerned to place them in shelters or housing.
“Move people from one street to another or from the street to prison and vice versa will not solve this problem,” she wrote in a statement.
