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Stephanie W., 28, who is homeless, rests on a foam mattress as a United States Park Police vehicle drives past on Wednesday in northwest Washington near the Kennedy Center. <\/span>Jacquelyn Martin\/AP<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n On the 26-mile motorcade<\/span> ride from the White House to his private golf club in Northern Virginia (one of 18 in his collection), President Donald Trump observed a few tents on public land and some garbage under an overpass. Perturbed by the imagery, he issued a sweeping demand<\/a> via his social media site, Truth Social: \u201cThe Homeless have to move out, IMMEDIATELY.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe will give you places to stay, but FAR from the Capital,\u201d Trump continued in his Sunday post. \u201cBe prepared!\u201d<\/p>\n The command came as he made plans to deploy 800 National Guard members to DC and temporarily federalize the city\u2019s police department, which he announced in a rambling 79-minute press conference<\/a> the next day.<\/p>\n Advocates for homeless people immediately pointed to a fundamental problem (one of many) with Trump\u2019s order: There aren\u2019t enough shelter beds in the nation\u2019s capital. Accordingly, how can homeless people prepare if they have nowhere to go?<\/p>\n \u201cWe really don\u2019t know what that looks like,\u201d Andy Wassenich, the policy director of the local nonprofit Miriam\u2019s Kitchen, which provides free food and social services in DC, tells me.<\/p>\n And if Trump\u2019s plan for removing homeless people from the District is hazy, so is his rationale. In his zig-zagging speech from the briefing-room podium, Trump described an anarchistic hellscape home to \u201cviolent gangs and bloodthirsty criminals, roving mobs of wild youth, [and] drugged out maniacs and homeless people.\u201d The description perhaps conjured visuals of sprawling tent encampments where rape and assault problems run rampant, but the depiction doesn\u2019t match the reality: US Park Police have already<\/em> removed 70 DC tent encampments<\/a> in response to an an executive order Trump signed in March, and violent crime in the city is actually at a 30-year low.<\/a> To the extent that unhoused people still live outside in DC, most sleep alone or in small clusters. This subgroup of the unhoused surely isn\u2019t welcoming crime, of which they are disproportionately victims. They too want law enforcement to arrest dangerous criminals in DC\u2014homeless or not.<\/p>\n \u201cIn DC, there are, right now, 30 open shelter beds for men and 30 open shelter beds for women\u2026 So for all intents and purposes, there\u2019s nowhere else for people to go.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n Wassenich\u2019s concern is that unhoused people minding their own business will be targeted along with the alleged criminals Trump has vowed to crack down on. On Tuesday afternoon, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt suggested that was indeed a possibility.<\/p>\n \u201cHomeless 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,\u201d said Leavitt. \u201cAnd if they refuse, they will be susceptible to fines or to jail time.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Among those at risk<\/span> is 66-year-old Larry, who did not provide his last name. Sitting on a park bench in Dupont Circle, where he has spent most of his days since losing his housing in June, Larry explains that keeping a roof over his head had never been an issue until his wife passed away from kidney failure in 2022. Her death meant the loss of the earned income she contributed to their household, but more importantly, it deprived Larry of his will to get out of bed in the morning.<\/p>\n \u201cI didn\u2019t feel like I could go on,\u201d he tells me. \u201cWhen I finally came back to reality, I ended up outside.\u201d<\/p>\n Alongside the DC National Guard, which was mobilized<\/a> Tuesday, the newly federalized DC police could theoretically arrest Larry for sleeping in Dupont Circle, which\u2014like much of DC\u2014is considered federal property.<\/p>\n \u201cI sleep sitting up,\u201d says 66-year-old Larry, who is concerned about the possibility of arrest in DC.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n\n
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