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The homeless 8-year-old chess champion is a prime example of a fast-growing sub-genre of unintentionally horrifying stories that are meant to uplift the reader, but instead highlight the hellish nightmare much of the country lives in. (Photo: Screenshot)
There's a certain genre of light-hearted human-interest stories that are common across most news platforms. Soft news, such as an autistic Arkansas teen winning a basketball scholarship (NBC, 11/29/18), a Tampa Bay area photographer helping animals get adopted (ABC Action News, 3/20/19) or an injured tortoise receiving a new 3D-printed shell (Huffington Post, 5/23/16) are designed to pique interest and raise viewers' spirits.
However, in the worsening economic climate, a growing number of these supposedly "uplifting" stories become unintentionally horrifying after a moment's reflection. A case in point is the New York Times' recent article (3/16/19) about Tanitoluwa Adewumi, a homeless 8-year-old New York chess champion--a story, the headline assures, will "make you smile." The Times details Adewumi's refugee background, his personal drive and his aggressive playing style, but neither it nor the many other outlets (USA Today, 3/19/19; NBC New York, 3/19/19; London Independent, 3/17/19) that also picked up the story pondered how it was possible for a child in one of the richest cities in the world to be homeless, and what that said about an economic and political system that allows this in the first place.
The homeless 8-year-old chess champion is a prime example of a fast-growing sub-genre of unintentionally horrifying stories that are meant to uplift the reader, but instead highlight the hellish nightmare much of the country lives in. The New York Post (3/7/19) ran an article on a teenager who saved up for two years to buy his friend an electric wheelchair.
MSNBC (1/17/19) covered the story of a furloughed government worker so desperate for cash she sold her wedding ring. When her family found out, they bought the ring back for her. Host Stephanie Ruhle breathlessly told her viewers, "That is such a great story" and "that is who we are as a nation." Others may have believed the latter, but not the former.
People (10/18/18) picked up a story about the wife of an 85-year-old McDonald's cleaner with two disabled grandsons who died in the restaurant's toilets, and how the local community rallied around to pay for her funeral. The story was covered by the Washington Post (10/9/18), many local news outlets, and also the website Sunny Skyz (10/23/18), whose tagline is "Live. Laugh. Love."
The questions of why a government worker is so desperate that she has to pawn her wedding ring, or why we live in a system where disabled children don't have adequate wheelchairs and are at the mercy of the charity of their teenage friends, are not asked. The media simply invite readers to delight in these tales of generosity.
And perhaps the story of an 85-year-old man forced to continue cleaning the toilets where his wife died so that he and his disabled grandchildren are not out on the streets is a vision of a post-industrial hell world, rather than an uplifting human interest piece suitable for InspireStory.com (11/20/18).
Likewise, an "uplifting" story of a Chicago woman who paid for hotel rooms for dozens of homeless people during the recent polar vortex was widely covered across the media (CBS, 2/1/19; Huffington Post, 1/31/19; Miami Herald, 2/1/19). Reading the reporting, the distinct impression given is that those people would have died of exposure if not for the Good Samaritan's actions. Indeed, the final sentence of the London Independent's (2/1/19) report casually notes that at least nine people had already died in Chicago alone. But this is not presented as a problem, or even worthy of note, in most of the coverage.
Some parts of these stories--the protagonists' determination or generosity, for instance--are certainly admirable. But the accounts as a whole can only be seen as uplifting if we unquestioningly accept the brutal logic of neoliberalism, where a person's worth, standard of living and even their continued existence are determined completely by their wealth and what they can earn on the market. Neoliberal ideology that promotes individualism and "free enterprise" does not see the rights to housing, healthcare or an adequate standard of living (enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights) as inalienable, but rather as commodities to be bought, sold and bargained for on the market.
Thus, the story of an Alabama man who walked 20 miles to a blue-collar job (ABC, 7/17/18; Washington Post, 7/18/18; CNN, 7/17/18) is not an example of a broken public transport system, but of the media's grim addiction to what Adam Johnson has dubbed "perseverance porn" (FAIR.org, 8/3/17).
Perhaps the two most common subjects for these unintentionally horrifying "uplifting" stories are paying for education and healthcare, the cost of which is off the scale in America compared to the rest of the industrialized world. CNN (1/15/18) shared the story of the "inspiring" Ryan Hickman, who, at just three years old, began recycling trash to help pay for college. After three and a half years, CNN noted, Hickman had saved $11,000 (a sum that covers less than one-fifth of a year's basic undergraduate tuition at his local University of Southern California).
CNBC (8/5/16) also found a North Carolina kid with a "can-do attitude" who did the same (making barely $3 a week doing so). Neither network asked why children have to literally wade through garbage to hope for a decent education in the richest country in world history.
Medical costs are a problem crippling many Americans. Hospital bills are the leading cause of bankruptcy in America, while one-third of all GoFundMe donations are for medical expenses. CBS (9/17/18) shared a supposedly "touching" story about a man who sold his beloved Ford Mustang to pay for his wife's cancer treatment and how, 12 years later, his children bought it back for him. The twist? The owner sold it back to fund her own mother's cancer treatment, according to the San Antonio Express News (9/13/18).
A local KTSM El Paso (8/4/18) anchor smiled as she said, "When life gives you lemons, make lemonade," informing viewers they were about hear a "sweet story" of a six-year-old girl who set up a lemonade stand to help pay for her mother's chemotherapy. What could possibly be more heartwarming than that? A different six-year-old setting up a lemonade stand to help pay for her own chemotherapy, whom Fox News (4/29/11) reported on. None of the featured stories explore the fact that if they lived in New Zealand, Norway or Nova Scotia, none of this would be necessary due to free healthcare.
Any of these stories could have been used as a gateway to discuss many of the crippling economic and social problems the US is facing. But under neoliberalism, every problem is understood through an individualist lens, and not a result of systemic forces that dominate society. To be clear, there are elements of triumph over adversity or impressive and admirable feats in these stories, but they occur in a neoliberal framework that forces them into these actions, and that framework is never questioned. The fact that the media, unable to look past their own ideological biases, do not explore these most basic issues, instead presenting these stories as human interest pieces, goes to show how engulfed in ideology they really are.
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There's a certain genre of light-hearted human-interest stories that are common across most news platforms. Soft news, such as an autistic Arkansas teen winning a basketball scholarship (NBC, 11/29/18), a Tampa Bay area photographer helping animals get adopted (ABC Action News, 3/20/19) or an injured tortoise receiving a new 3D-printed shell (Huffington Post, 5/23/16) are designed to pique interest and raise viewers' spirits.
However, in the worsening economic climate, a growing number of these supposedly "uplifting" stories become unintentionally horrifying after a moment's reflection. A case in point is the New York Times' recent article (3/16/19) about Tanitoluwa Adewumi, a homeless 8-year-old New York chess champion--a story, the headline assures, will "make you smile." The Times details Adewumi's refugee background, his personal drive and his aggressive playing style, but neither it nor the many other outlets (USA Today, 3/19/19; NBC New York, 3/19/19; London Independent, 3/17/19) that also picked up the story pondered how it was possible for a child in one of the richest cities in the world to be homeless, and what that said about an economic and political system that allows this in the first place.
The homeless 8-year-old chess champion is a prime example of a fast-growing sub-genre of unintentionally horrifying stories that are meant to uplift the reader, but instead highlight the hellish nightmare much of the country lives in. The New York Post (3/7/19) ran an article on a teenager who saved up for two years to buy his friend an electric wheelchair.
MSNBC (1/17/19) covered the story of a furloughed government worker so desperate for cash she sold her wedding ring. When her family found out, they bought the ring back for her. Host Stephanie Ruhle breathlessly told her viewers, "That is such a great story" and "that is who we are as a nation." Others may have believed the latter, but not the former.
People (10/18/18) picked up a story about the wife of an 85-year-old McDonald's cleaner with two disabled grandsons who died in the restaurant's toilets, and how the local community rallied around to pay for her funeral. The story was covered by the Washington Post (10/9/18), many local news outlets, and also the website Sunny Skyz (10/23/18), whose tagline is "Live. Laugh. Love."
The questions of why a government worker is so desperate that she has to pawn her wedding ring, or why we live in a system where disabled children don't have adequate wheelchairs and are at the mercy of the charity of their teenage friends, are not asked. The media simply invite readers to delight in these tales of generosity.
And perhaps the story of an 85-year-old man forced to continue cleaning the toilets where his wife died so that he and his disabled grandchildren are not out on the streets is a vision of a post-industrial hell world, rather than an uplifting human interest piece suitable for InspireStory.com (11/20/18).
Likewise, an "uplifting" story of a Chicago woman who paid for hotel rooms for dozens of homeless people during the recent polar vortex was widely covered across the media (CBS, 2/1/19; Huffington Post, 1/31/19; Miami Herald, 2/1/19). Reading the reporting, the distinct impression given is that those people would have died of exposure if not for the Good Samaritan's actions. Indeed, the final sentence of the London Independent's (2/1/19) report casually notes that at least nine people had already died in Chicago alone. But this is not presented as a problem, or even worthy of note, in most of the coverage.
Some parts of these stories--the protagonists' determination or generosity, for instance--are certainly admirable. But the accounts as a whole can only be seen as uplifting if we unquestioningly accept the brutal logic of neoliberalism, where a person's worth, standard of living and even their continued existence are determined completely by their wealth and what they can earn on the market. Neoliberal ideology that promotes individualism and "free enterprise" does not see the rights to housing, healthcare or an adequate standard of living (enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights) as inalienable, but rather as commodities to be bought, sold and bargained for on the market.
Thus, the story of an Alabama man who walked 20 miles to a blue-collar job (ABC, 7/17/18; Washington Post, 7/18/18; CNN, 7/17/18) is not an example of a broken public transport system, but of the media's grim addiction to what Adam Johnson has dubbed "perseverance porn" (FAIR.org, 8/3/17).
Perhaps the two most common subjects for these unintentionally horrifying "uplifting" stories are paying for education and healthcare, the cost of which is off the scale in America compared to the rest of the industrialized world. CNN (1/15/18) shared the story of the "inspiring" Ryan Hickman, who, at just three years old, began recycling trash to help pay for college. After three and a half years, CNN noted, Hickman had saved $11,000 (a sum that covers less than one-fifth of a year's basic undergraduate tuition at his local University of Southern California).
CNBC (8/5/16) also found a North Carolina kid with a "can-do attitude" who did the same (making barely $3 a week doing so). Neither network asked why children have to literally wade through garbage to hope for a decent education in the richest country in world history.
Medical costs are a problem crippling many Americans. Hospital bills are the leading cause of bankruptcy in America, while one-third of all GoFundMe donations are for medical expenses. CBS (9/17/18) shared a supposedly "touching" story about a man who sold his beloved Ford Mustang to pay for his wife's cancer treatment and how, 12 years later, his children bought it back for him. The twist? The owner sold it back to fund her own mother's cancer treatment, according to the San Antonio Express News (9/13/18).
A local KTSM El Paso (8/4/18) anchor smiled as she said, "When life gives you lemons, make lemonade," informing viewers they were about hear a "sweet story" of a six-year-old girl who set up a lemonade stand to help pay for her mother's chemotherapy. What could possibly be more heartwarming than that? A different six-year-old setting up a lemonade stand to help pay for her own chemotherapy, whom Fox News (4/29/11) reported on. None of the featured stories explore the fact that if they lived in New Zealand, Norway or Nova Scotia, none of this would be necessary due to free healthcare.
Any of these stories could have been used as a gateway to discuss many of the crippling economic and social problems the US is facing. But under neoliberalism, every problem is understood through an individualist lens, and not a result of systemic forces that dominate society. To be clear, there are elements of triumph over adversity or impressive and admirable feats in these stories, but they occur in a neoliberal framework that forces them into these actions, and that framework is never questioned. The fact that the media, unable to look past their own ideological biases, do not explore these most basic issues, instead presenting these stories as human interest pieces, goes to show how engulfed in ideology they really are.
There's a certain genre of light-hearted human-interest stories that are common across most news platforms. Soft news, such as an autistic Arkansas teen winning a basketball scholarship (NBC, 11/29/18), a Tampa Bay area photographer helping animals get adopted (ABC Action News, 3/20/19) or an injured tortoise receiving a new 3D-printed shell (Huffington Post, 5/23/16) are designed to pique interest and raise viewers' spirits.
However, in the worsening economic climate, a growing number of these supposedly "uplifting" stories become unintentionally horrifying after a moment's reflection. A case in point is the New York Times' recent article (3/16/19) about Tanitoluwa Adewumi, a homeless 8-year-old New York chess champion--a story, the headline assures, will "make you smile." The Times details Adewumi's refugee background, his personal drive and his aggressive playing style, but neither it nor the many other outlets (USA Today, 3/19/19; NBC New York, 3/19/19; London Independent, 3/17/19) that also picked up the story pondered how it was possible for a child in one of the richest cities in the world to be homeless, and what that said about an economic and political system that allows this in the first place.
The homeless 8-year-old chess champion is a prime example of a fast-growing sub-genre of unintentionally horrifying stories that are meant to uplift the reader, but instead highlight the hellish nightmare much of the country lives in. The New York Post (3/7/19) ran an article on a teenager who saved up for two years to buy his friend an electric wheelchair.
MSNBC (1/17/19) covered the story of a furloughed government worker so desperate for cash she sold her wedding ring. When her family found out, they bought the ring back for her. Host Stephanie Ruhle breathlessly told her viewers, "That is such a great story" and "that is who we are as a nation." Others may have believed the latter, but not the former.
People (10/18/18) picked up a story about the wife of an 85-year-old McDonald's cleaner with two disabled grandsons who died in the restaurant's toilets, and how the local community rallied around to pay for her funeral. The story was covered by the Washington Post (10/9/18), many local news outlets, and also the website Sunny Skyz (10/23/18), whose tagline is "Live. Laugh. Love."
The questions of why a government worker is so desperate that she has to pawn her wedding ring, or why we live in a system where disabled children don't have adequate wheelchairs and are at the mercy of the charity of their teenage friends, are not asked. The media simply invite readers to delight in these tales of generosity.
And perhaps the story of an 85-year-old man forced to continue cleaning the toilets where his wife died so that he and his disabled grandchildren are not out on the streets is a vision of a post-industrial hell world, rather than an uplifting human interest piece suitable for InspireStory.com (11/20/18).
Likewise, an "uplifting" story of a Chicago woman who paid for hotel rooms for dozens of homeless people during the recent polar vortex was widely covered across the media (CBS, 2/1/19; Huffington Post, 1/31/19; Miami Herald, 2/1/19). Reading the reporting, the distinct impression given is that those people would have died of exposure if not for the Good Samaritan's actions. Indeed, the final sentence of the London Independent's (2/1/19) report casually notes that at least nine people had already died in Chicago alone. But this is not presented as a problem, or even worthy of note, in most of the coverage.
Some parts of these stories--the protagonists' determination or generosity, for instance--are certainly admirable. But the accounts as a whole can only be seen as uplifting if we unquestioningly accept the brutal logic of neoliberalism, where a person's worth, standard of living and even their continued existence are determined completely by their wealth and what they can earn on the market. Neoliberal ideology that promotes individualism and "free enterprise" does not see the rights to housing, healthcare or an adequate standard of living (enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights) as inalienable, but rather as commodities to be bought, sold and bargained for on the market.
Thus, the story of an Alabama man who walked 20 miles to a blue-collar job (ABC, 7/17/18; Washington Post, 7/18/18; CNN, 7/17/18) is not an example of a broken public transport system, but of the media's grim addiction to what Adam Johnson has dubbed "perseverance porn" (FAIR.org, 8/3/17).
Perhaps the two most common subjects for these unintentionally horrifying "uplifting" stories are paying for education and healthcare, the cost of which is off the scale in America compared to the rest of the industrialized world. CNN (1/15/18) shared the story of the "inspiring" Ryan Hickman, who, at just three years old, began recycling trash to help pay for college. After three and a half years, CNN noted, Hickman had saved $11,000 (a sum that covers less than one-fifth of a year's basic undergraduate tuition at his local University of Southern California).
CNBC (8/5/16) also found a North Carolina kid with a "can-do attitude" who did the same (making barely $3 a week doing so). Neither network asked why children have to literally wade through garbage to hope for a decent education in the richest country in world history.
Medical costs are a problem crippling many Americans. Hospital bills are the leading cause of bankruptcy in America, while one-third of all GoFundMe donations are for medical expenses. CBS (9/17/18) shared a supposedly "touching" story about a man who sold his beloved Ford Mustang to pay for his wife's cancer treatment and how, 12 years later, his children bought it back for him. The twist? The owner sold it back to fund her own mother's cancer treatment, according to the San Antonio Express News (9/13/18).
A local KTSM El Paso (8/4/18) anchor smiled as she said, "When life gives you lemons, make lemonade," informing viewers they were about hear a "sweet story" of a six-year-old girl who set up a lemonade stand to help pay for her mother's chemotherapy. What could possibly be more heartwarming than that? A different six-year-old setting up a lemonade stand to help pay for her own chemotherapy, whom Fox News (4/29/11) reported on. None of the featured stories explore the fact that if they lived in New Zealand, Norway or Nova Scotia, none of this would be necessary due to free healthcare.
Any of these stories could have been used as a gateway to discuss many of the crippling economic and social problems the US is facing. But under neoliberalism, every problem is understood through an individualist lens, and not a result of systemic forces that dominate society. To be clear, there are elements of triumph over adversity or impressive and admirable feats in these stories, but they occur in a neoliberal framework that forces them into these actions, and that framework is never questioned. The fact that the media, unable to look past their own ideological biases, do not explore these most basic issues, instead presenting these stories as human interest pieces, goes to show how engulfed in ideology they really are.
"Congressman Bresnahan didn't just vote to gut Pennsylvania hospitals. He looked out for his own bottom line before doing it," said one advocate.
Congressman Rob Bresnahan, a Republican who campaigned on banning stock trading by lawmakers only to make at least 626 stock trades since taking office in January, was under scrutiny Monday for a particular sale he made just before he voted for the largest Medicaid cut in US history.
Soon after a report showed that 10 rural hospitals in Bresnahan's state of Pennsylvania were at risk of being shut down, the congressman sold between $100,001 and $250,000 in bonds issued by the Allegheny County Hospital Development Authority for the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.
The New York Times reported on the sale a month after it was revealed that Bresnahan sold up to $15,000 of stock he held in Centene Corporation, the largest Medicaid provider in the country. When President Donald Trump signed the so-called One Big Beautiful Bill Act into law last month, Centene's stock plummeted by 40%.
Bresnahan repeatedly said he would not vote to cut the safety net before he voted in favor of the bill.
The law is expected to cut $1 trillion from Medicaid over the next decade, with 10-15 million people projected to lose health coverage through the safety net program, according to one recent analysis. More than 700 hospitals, particularly those in rural areas, are likely to close due to a loss of Medicaid funding.
"His prolific stock trading is more than just a broken promise," said Cousin. "It's political malpractice and a scandal of his own making."
The economic justice group Unrig the Economy said that despite Bresnahan's introduction of a bill in May to bar members of Congress from buying and selling stocks—with the caveat that they could keep stocks they held before starting their terms in a blind trust—the congressman is "the one doing the selling... out of Pennsylvania hospitals."
"Congressman Bresnahan didn't just vote to gut Pennsylvania hospitals. He looked out for his own bottom line before doing it," said Unrig Our Economy campaign director Leor Tal. "Hospitals across Pennsylvania could close thanks to his vote, forcing families to drive long distances and experience longer wait times for critical care."
"Not everyone has a secret helicopter they can use whenever they want," added Tal, referring to recent reports that the multi-millionaire congressman owns a helicopter worth as much as $1.5 million, which he purchased through a limited liability company he set up.
Eli Cousin, a spokesperson for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, told the Times that Bresnahan's stock trading "will define his time in Washington and be a major reason why he will lose his seat."
"His prolific stock trading is more than just a broken promise," said Cousin. "It's political malpractice and a scandal of his own making."
"If troops or federal agents violate our rights, they must be held accountable," the ACLU said.
As President Donald Trump escalates the US military occupation of Washington, DC—including by importing hundreds of out-of-state National Guard troops and allowing others to start carrying guns on missions in the nation's capital—the ACLU on Monday reminded his administration that federal forces are constitutionally obligated to protect, not violate, residents' rights.
"With additional state National Guard troops deploying to DC as untrained federal law enforcement agents perform local police duties in city streets, the American Civil Liberties Union is issuing a stark reminder to all federal and military officials that—no matter what uniform they wear or what authority they claim—they are bound by the US Constitution and all federal and local laws," the group said in a statement.
Over the weekend, the Republican governors of Ohio, South Carolina, and West Virginia announced that they are deploying hundreds of National Guard troops to join the 800 DC guardsmen and women recently activated by Trump, who also asserted federal control over the city's Metropolitan Police Department (MPD).
Sending military troops and heavily-armed federal agents to patrol the streets and scare vulnerable communities does not make us safer.
— ACLU (@aclu.org) August 18, 2025 at 12:08 PM
Trump dubiously declared a public safety emergency in a city where violent crime is down 26% from a year ago, when it was at its second-lowest level since 1966, according to official statistics. Critics have noted that Trump's crackdown isn't just targeting criminals, but also unhoused and mentally ill people, who have had their homes destroyed and property taken.
Contradicting assurances from military officials, The Wall Street Journal reported Sunday that the newly deployed troops may be ordered to start carrying firearms. This, along with the president's vow to let police "do whatever the hell they want" to reduce crime in the city and other statements, have raised serious concerns of possible abuses.
"Through his manufactured emergency, President Trump is engaging in dangerous political theater to expand his power and sow fear in our communities," ACLU National Security Project director Hina Shamsi said Monday. "Sending heavily armed federal agents and National Guard troops from hundreds of miles away into our nation's capital is unnecessary, inflammatory, and puts people's rights at high risk of being violated."
Shamsi stressed that "federal agents and military troops are bound by the Constitution, including our rights to peaceful assembly, freedom of speech, due process, and safeguards against unlawful searches and seizures. If troops or federal agents violate our rights, they must be held accountable."
On Friday, the District of Columbia sued the Trump administration to block its order asserting federal authority over the MPD, arguing the move violated the Home Rule Act. U.S. Attorney General Bondi subsequently rescinded her order to replace DC Police Chief Pamela Smith with Drug Enforcement Administration Administrator Terry Cole.
Also on Friday, a group of House Democrats introduced a resolution to terminate Trump's emergency declaration.
The deployment of out-of-state National Guard troops onto our streets is a brazen abuse of power meant to create fear in the District.Join us in the fight for statehood to give D.C. residents the same guardrails against federal overreach as other states: dcstatehoodnow.org
[image or embed]
— ACLU of the District of Columbia (@aclu-dc.bsky.social) August 18, 2025 at 7:23 AM
ACLU of DC executive director Monica Hopkins argued Monday that there is a way to curb Trump's "brazen abuse of power" in the District.
"We need the nation to join us in the fight for statehood so that DC residents are treated like those in every other state and have the same guardrails against federal overreach," she said.
The National Alliance to End Homelessness estimates that the proposal could increase the number of homeless people in the US by 36%.
As US President Donald Trump moves forward with a nationwide purge of homeless people from America's streets, his administration is moving to kill a program that has helped many of those in need find permanent housing.
The White House's fiscal year 2026 budget proposes ending a program under the Department of Housing and Urban Development known as Continuum of Care, which has helped cities across the country address or, in some cases, nearly eliminate their homelessness problem.
To receive federal funds, cities are required to adopt community-wide plans to end homelessness with the goal of moving people from the streets into shelters and then into stable housing.
The National Alliance to End Homelessness describes Continuum of Care as "the federal government's key vehicle for distributing homelessness funds."
As the Washington Post reports, Dallas has become a model for the program's effectiveness:
Instead of shuffling people to other neighborhoods, [the city] offered wraparound social services—and a permanent place to live.
The approach worked. Even as homelessness nationwide has surged to record levels, Dallas has emerged as a national model. The city declared an end to downtown homelessness in May after more than 270 people moved off the streets.
Other places, it says, have used Continuum of Care to substantially reduce homelessness, including San Bernardino, California, and Montgomery County, Maryland.
But the White House budget, unveiled in May, would eliminate Continuum of Care, instead shifting its resources to the Emergency Solutions Grant (ESG) program, which prioritizes shelters and transitional housing, as well as mental health and substance abuse counselling, rather than "Housing First" solutions.
The National Alliance to End Homelessness says the administration's plan to consolidate the program "would place thousands of projects and the hundreds of thousands of people they serve at risk."
The Alliance estimated that 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%.
In addition to eliminating Continuum of Care, the White House budget cuts $532 million in funding to the federal government's Homeless Assistance Grants account. That money, the Alliance says, could fund over 60,000 Rapid Re-Housing Units—enough to serve 8% of the US homeless population.
"Between 2023 and 2024, homelessness increased by 18%, yet this proposal would strip funding for the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD)'s homelessness programs by 12%," said Ann Oliva, CEO of the National Alliance to End Homelessness. "That is a recipe for disaster. We know that these programs have been chronically underfunded for decades."
In recent weeks, the Trump administration has declared an all-out war on the nation's homeless population. In July, he signed an executive order requiring states and cities to remove homeless people from public places, expanding cases where they must be involuntarily committed to psychiatric hospitals, and requiring sobriety preconditions for them to receive housing assistance.
During his federal takeover of Washington, DC, Trump ordered homeless people in encampments to move "FAR from the Capital." Press secretary Karoline Leavitt has said those who refuse to accept services at a shelter will face jail time.
The advocacy group Housing Not Handcuffs reported Friday that "police evicted and destroyed the property of homeless people throughout DC, throwing away people's personal belongings, including tents and other property."
"Homelessness is a market failure, a housing problem," said Rob Robinson, a formerly homeless community organizer in New York City, in USA Today. "Rent prices have exceeded income gains by 325% nationally since 1985. Rates of homelessness are tied to rental affordability."
"The White House's recent moves toward the criminalization of homelessness and forced institutionalization," he said, "ignore decades of research and real-world outcomes."
"If Donald Trump really wanted to help people and solve homelessness, he would use his power to lower rents and help people make ends meet," said Jesse Rabinowitz from the National Homelessness Law Center. "Estimates show that taxpayers are spending over $400,000 a day for Trump to use the DC National Guard for photo ops. Why can they find money for that but not for housing and help?"