Posted on Friday, July 25, 2025
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by Alan Jamison
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President Donald Trump signed a new executive order Thursday to restore safety to America’s cities and remove troubled individuals from the streets. The new policy will allow states and the federal government to provide homeless individuals with the help they need while incarcerating those who continue to commit crimes.
The president explained in the executive order that the number of individuals living on the streets totaled a record 274,224 people during the last year of the Biden administration. He added that an “overwhelming majority” of this homeless population “are addicted to drugs, have a mental health condition, or both,” with about two-thirds of them extensively using hard drugs such as methamphetamines, cocaine, and opioids. Trump is again fulfilling a significant campaign promise with this executive order.
“When I am back in the White House, we will use every tool, lever, and authority to get the homeless off our streets,” Trump said in a campaign video in 2023. “We want to take care of them, but they have to be off our streets. There is nothing compassionate about letting these individuals live in filth and squalor rather than getting them the help they need. We need professionals to help them.”
The executive order directs Attorney General Pam Bondi 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,” according to a White House fact sheet.
Bondi will work with Health and Human Services Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr., Housing and Urban Development Secretary Scott Turner, and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy to prioritize grants for jurisdictions that “enforce prohibitions on open illicit drug use, urban camping and loitering, and urban squatting, and track the location of sex offenders.”
The administration will also redirect funding to ensure that homeless individuals on the streets receive proper care. Homeless people who need help will be “moved into treatment centers, assisted outpatient treatment, or other facilities.” Sex offenders will also no longer be housed in facilities with children, with new exclusive housing for women and children.
The new executive order received an outpouring of support online.
“Anyone who has walked around a city has encountered people – mentally ill, drunk, stoned, violent, threatening those around them – who need to be institutionalized,” commentator Byron York posted on X. “It is not a humane policy to have them sleeping on the streets. This is a good thing.”
“Letting mentally ill people suffer and die on the streets is cruel,” legal expert Mike David added. “Cruel to them. Cruel to those around them. Trump’s order is clear: Americans don’t have to live like this.”
Utah State Rep. Tyler Clancy also praised Trump in a post on X for issuing the executive order. He said that the president initiated a “necessary pivot from failure to common sense.”
“The truth is simple: the streets are a death sentence for our mentally ill & drug addicted brothers & sisters,” Clancy said. “Tents are not treatment. Public parks are not detox centers. And unchecked lawlessness is not compassion.”
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt explained the importance of the executive order as an effort to “end homelessness across America” in a statement to USA Today.
“By removing vagrant criminals from our streets and redirecting resources toward substance abuse programs, the Trump Administration will ensure that Americans feel safe in their own communities and that individuals suffering from addiction or mental health struggles are able to get the help they need,” she said.
Alan Jamison is the pen name of a political writer with extensive experience writing for several notable politicians and news outlets.
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