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homelessness
Trump’s New Substance Use Policy Would Have Made My Own Recovery Impossible
My daughter exists because someone gave me a hotel room, a hospital bed, and a second chance. If EO 14321 had been in place, I would have been treated like a criminal, not a patient.
Aug 30, 2025
Last month, US President Donald Trump signed Executive Order 14321—“Ending Crime and Disorder on America’s Streets.” By criminalizing homelessness, addiction, and mental health crises, the order strips federal support from lifesaving public health solutions like Housing First and harm reduction—the very policies that saved my life and my daughter’s, and made my nearly three years of recovery possible.
I spent over a decade unhoused in San Francisco. I was already used to instability—much of my childhood was spent living in cars, motels, and campgrounds, until I landed in foster care. They kept placing me in institutions, each more restrictive than the last. I ran away often. The threat of forced placements where abuse was common taught me early to value my freedom. But freedom, without any foundation, can come at the cost of survival. I used substances to manage trauma I had no tools to process. It wasn’t glamorous. I did what I had to do to survive.
By age 29, I was pregnant and living in a makeshift shelter beside the freeway with my partner. A massive storm hit and everything we had was washed away. We were soaked, freezing, and standing in knee-deep water when the city’s Homeless Outreach Team arrived. No judgment. Just one question: “Are you safe where you are right now?” They got us into a hotel that night. That simple act saved my life—and gave me a chance.
With shelter, I was able to schedule a prenatal appointment. When I missed it due to withdrawal symptoms, a public health nurse came to me and helped get me into a hospital bed to safely taper off opioids. I spent the rest of my pregnancy hospitalized due to complications. My daughter was born prematurely and spent two months in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. It was a long road, but we made it. That wouldn’t have been possible under Trump’s executive order.
If Trump chooses cages, we can choose clinics. If he chooses punishment, we can choose prevention. If he chooses fear, we must choose humanity.
EO 14321 eliminates federal support for Housing First policies—programs that provide housing without requiring sobriety. It prioritizes forced institutionalization over voluntary care. It defunds services like naloxone distribution, clean syringes, and mobile health teams that meet people where they are. It punishes cities like San Francisco for offering compassionate, evidence-based care.
After giving birth, I entered treatment, using methadone to taper slowly. I’ve been sober nearly three years. That wouldn’t have happened if I’d been forced to quit cold turkey. The first time I was pregnant, I did exactly that—thinking it was best for the baby. I got violently ill and miscarried. I didn’t know opioid withdrawal could be fatal during pregnancy.
That’s why harm reduction matters. When you’ve used for years, quitting all at once can kill you. I needed time, support, and nonjudgmental care. If someone had tried to force me into abstinence, I would’ve run. The only reason I could stay was because I was met with dignity, not demands.
Harm reduction tools—like clean syringes and naloxone—kept me and my partner alive long enough to heal. Narcan brought us back more than once. These aren’t fringe ideas. They’re public health basics. Without them, I wouldn’t be a mother today.
My daughter is 2 now—chubby, curious, thriving. I still receive medication-assisted treatment, not because I’m still using, but because my tolerance was high after years on the street. My partner is now in the sheet metal union. We have housing. We have hope. But under EO 14321, the very services that helped build this life would have been gone. The care I needed would’ve been criminalized.
Trump’s order doesn’t just shift funding—it reshapes the system around coercion. It calls for expanded civil commitment laws that make forced treatment easier. But science and lived experience say the same thing: Coercion kills, voluntary care heals. I was institutionalized for nearly a year at 16—not because I was violent, but because I was suffering. It didn’t help. It hurt. It made me distrustful and traumatized. If you strip away someone’s autonomy, you strip away their will to recover.
This order tries to legislate suffering. It replaces housing and support with jail cells, locked wards, and abstinence-only programs that don’t work for most people. It replaces hope with fear. But addiction doesn’t respond to punishment. Recovery grows in trust, safety, and connection.
So what does compassion look like in practice? Start with Housing First—always. Fund syringe access and safe-use spaces. Offer medication-assisted treatment without strings attached. Train outreach workers in trauma-informed care. Build trust. Respect autonomy. Celebrate survival instead of punishing it.
San Francisco has already shown it’s possible. Our city is on track to become the first major US city with no new HIV infections—precisely because we invested in harm reduction and met people where they were, without shame. As the federal government rolls back those strategies, we face a choice. Do we follow them down a path of fear and criminalization, or do we lead with evidence, compassion, and courage?
My daughter exists because someone gave me a hotel room, a hospital bed, and a second chance. If EO 14321 had been in place, I would have been treated like a criminal, not a patient. I might not be here. She definitely wouldn’t be. Until a person dies, there is hope. That hope is sacred. It’s not flashy. It takes time. But it works. If Trump chooses cages, we can choose clinics. If he chooses punishment, we can choose prevention. If he chooses fear, we must choose humanity. Let’s not squander the hope we still have.
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Providing Housing to End DC Homelessness Would Be Far Cheaper Than Trump’s Takeover
If the guard remains deployed for three months, it would cost more than operating public housing for the entire unhoused population in DC for an entire year.
Aug 23, 2025
US President Donald Trump mobilized the DC National Guard under the guise of restoring security in the nation’s capital—despite DC’s crime rate being at a 30-year low. What began as a deployment of 800 DC National Guard troops has grown to encompass 2,091 as of this writing, as Republican governors send hundreds more.
Trump hasn’t just complained about alleged crime in the district—he’s placed a target on people experiencing poverty and homelessness. Claiming that we’re “getting rid of the slums,” Trump has called on troops and police to forcibly remove unhoused people from the city.
Federal law prohibits deploying the military on US soil, except under certain extraordinary circumstances. Trump is currently facing legal challenges over his 60-day deployment of troops in Los Angeles earlier this year under equally unfounded claims about violence and risk—and against the wishes of the troops themselves.
Now he’s ordering soldiers into our streets for the fourth time as president to viciously target some of the most vulnerable members of our society—despite abundant evidence that prosecuting homelessness only makes it worse.
The cost of this cruel power grab is borne by taxpayers like you and me.
The daily expense of deploying troops to DC is more than four times the daily cost of operating public housing for Georgia’s unhoused population, five times for Nevada’s unhoused population, and 15 times for all unhoused people in Wisconsin.
Previous reporting found that National Guard deployments cost the US government $530 per guard member, per day. So the price tag of deploying 2,091 troops to DC is well over $1 million per day—and the number of troops will likely continue to grow. And with no deadline for the DC deployment, those costs could add up for months or even years.
This militarized spending comes at the expense of federal programs—like public housing—that actually do prevent crime and improve health and education outcomes.
Using those figures and other publicly available data, I calculated that the daily cost of operating public housing for all 5,616 people who are unhoused in DC on any given night is one-quarter the daily expense of deploying the National Guard. If the guard remains deployed for three months, it would cost more than operating public housing for the entire unhoused population in DC for an entire year.
This is true for every community across the country—including the states whose GOP governors are voluntarily sending National Guardsmen to the capital. Across those six states—Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee, Ohio, South Carolina, West Virginia—some 30,000 people are unhoused. The daily cost of operating safe shelter for all 30,000 would be less than one day of the DC occupation.
This holds true for just about every state, I learned.
The daily expense of deploying troops to DC is more than four times the daily cost of operating public housing for Georgia’s unhoused population, five times for Nevada’s unhoused population, and 15 times for all unhoused people in Wisconsin.
If you want numbers for your own city, county, state, or congressional district, you can use the National Priorities Project’s trade off calculator at NationalPriorities.org to learn more about what taxpayers in your area are paying toward militarism—and the services we could be enjoying instead.
Trump’s decision to hyper-militarize our streets is transpiring on the heels of the MAGA budget bill, which cuts food and medical services for millions across the country to further enrich billionaires and war profiteers.
Deploying troops in our nation’s capital, rather than investing in what makes communities safe and prosperous, is yet another attempt to scapegoat struggling people—especially communities of color—to advance a draconian agenda in service of billionaires, war profiteers, and white supremacy.
Government spending on straightforward solutions that help poor and working-class people faces constant political backlash. But providing affordable housing to end homelessness in DC would be far cheaper than deploying troops—and would do far more to improve the city’s security.
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Trump's DC Occupation Costs 4 Times More Than It Would Take to House City's Entire Homeless Population
"This militarized spending comes at the expense of federal programs—like public housing—that actually do prevent crime and improve health and education outcomes," said researcher Hanna Homestead.
Aug 22, 2025
Last week, when Trump federalized Washington, DC's police force and deployed the National Guard to occupy its streets, one of his main orders was to "end vagrancy" by destroying homeless encampments and arresting and forcibly relocating the people taking shelter there.
But according to an investigation published on Wednesday by Hanna Homestead of the National Priorities Project, in collaboration with The Intercept, deploying the National Guard and "getting rid of the slums" is costing far more than it would cost to simply provide housing to every homeless person in the city.
Governors from six US states have sent troops to Washington to help Trump's effort, swelling the ranks to nearly 2,100 who will soon be on patrol.
According to previous reporting, National Guard deployments cost the US government $530 per guard member each day. Using that figure, Homestead estimated that it would cost just over $1.1 million.
She added that "the number of troops will likely continue to grow. And with no deadline for the DC deployment, those costs could add up for months or even years."
According to the most recent data from the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), there are about 5,600 people experiencing either sheltered and unsheltered homelessness in DC on a given night. Operating an affordable housing unit for each one of them, the data shows, costs about $45.44 per person, per day, on average in DC.
Providing affordable housing to every homeless person in DC would cost an estimated $255,166, which is 4.3 times less than the cost of Trump's military deployment.
"Taxpayers like you and me bear the cost of this cruel power grab," Homestead said. "This militarized spending comes at the expense of federal programs—like public housing—that actually do prevent crime and improve health and education outcomes."
Last week, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters that over 70 encampments had been cleared since Trump's order to federalize the police. She also said that over 600 people had been arrested, though it was not specified how many of them were homeless.
Trump has sought to conflate homelessness with criminality, suggesting that the nation's capital had been "overtaken by violent gangs and bloodthirsty criminals, roving mobs of wild youth, drugged-out maniacs, and homeless people."
While his solution has been a show of military force against people with nowhere to go, a large body of research suggests that the approach of providing "Housing First"—meaning a stable place to stay with no preconditions for sobriety or treatment—reduces crime.
A 2021 study from UCLA found that providing homeless people with targeted housing assistance reduced the probability of committing a crime by 80%.
"Arresting or ticketing people for sleeping outside makes homelessness worse, wastes taxpayer money, and simply does not work," said Jesse Rabinowitz of the National Homelessness Law Center. "The solution to homelessness is housing and supports, not handcuffs and jails."
But in addition to a crackdown on the homeless, the Trump administration is also pushing to eliminate funds for public housing. The White House's proposed budget for fiscal year 2026 slashes funding for HUD's Continuum of Care program, which provided cities with funding for initiatives to house the homeless.
According to the National Alliance to End Homelessness, the proposal would effectively end funding of permanent supportive housing for 170,000 residents and potentially increase the number of homeless people in the US by 36%.
"Arresting people for no reason other than the fact that they have no home is inhumane and unjust," said Amber W. Harding, executive director of the Washington Legal Clinic for the Homeless. "It is particularly cruel to do so knowing that federal and local housing programs have been slashed and that DC does not have enough shelter beds."
"Fines, arrests, and encampment evictions make homelessness worse, further traumatize our homeless neighbors while disconnecting them from community and support," said Dana White, Director of Advocacy at Miriam's Kitchen, a DC-based homeless services organization. "If policing resolved homelessness, we wouldn't have homelessness here in DC or anywhere else in this country."
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