President Donald Trump’s new executive order is a direct attack on some of the strategies that Denver leaders have embraced in their fight to end unsheltered homelessness.
The order, called “Ending Crime and Disorder on America’s Streets,” attempts to defund “housing first” and “harm reduction” approaches to homelessness. Both strategies have played heavily in Mayor Mike Johnston’s housing efforts in Denver, and many researchers say they are backed by evidence.
The new order “prioritizes criminalization and involuntary civil commitment of those forced to live on the streets due to the federal government’s failure to invest in housing solutions that could have solved homelessness decades ago,” the Colorado Coalition for the Homeless wrote in a statement on Friday.
Trump’s order says that cities should force people experiencing homelessness into treatment for addiction and mental health issues. It attempts to end the practice of providing housing to people who can’t or won’t enter treatment programs.
The order also would defund harm reduction strategies, like local programs that provide clean syringes for people who use drugs. And it would punish cities that embrace housing first and harm reduction with civil and criminal investigations and sweeping funding cuts.
“His approach to the street folks is, ‘We'll put you in institutions,’” said Don Burnes, the co-founder of the Burnes Center for Poverty Research at the Colorado Center on Law and Poverty. “And the problem is that we don't have enough of those institutions.”
If implemented, the order could trigger sweeping federal funding cuts to Denver’s current homelessness and public health strategies— the sort of budget fallout the city is already fighting in multiple lawsuits over other executive orders.
Mayor Mike Johnston defended Denver’s efforts, saying in a statement that the city had provided a “a blueprint for how cities across the country can address this crisis that to many seems unsolvable.”
He welcomed anyone, including Trump, to come learn “best practices for tackling the issue.” But in a recent speech, he also implied the city could embrace at least some of the strategies Trump is now ordering.
