Scott Turner, Secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), recently praised President Trump’s Executive Order (EO), “Ending Crime and Disorder on America’s Streets.” By guaranteeing that Americans with serious mental illness or addiction receive treatment to promote recovery and self-sufficiency, the EO brings accountability back to homelessness programs.
The HUD report claims that this action marks a departure from “housing first” policies that disregarded the connection between homelessness, illegal drugs, and mental illness. This new order will redirect federal funds toward programs that address substance abuse as part of tackling homelessness and ensuring public safety.
“We can protect the safety and security of our streets while also supporting access to resources that will help homeless Americans break cycles of addiction and dependency,” Secretary Turner said. “Having a heart for our homeless brothers and sisters does not mean indefinitely subsidizing housing without accountability and proper requirements for treatment, recovery, and pathways for self-sufficiency. Having a heart for our homeless brothers and sisters means helping them get back on their feet through a holistic approach so that the tough times will be temporary, and our streets and communities will be safer.”
The Executive Order includes actions such as:
- The Order directs the Attorney General 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.
- The Order requires the Attorney General to work with the Secretary of Health and Human Services, Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, and the Secretary of Transportation to prioritize grants for states and municipalities that enforce prohibitions on open illicit drug use, urban camping and loitering, and urban squatting, and track the location of sex offenders.
- The Order redirects funding to ensure that individuals camping on streets and causing public disorder and that are suffering from serious mental illness or addiction are moved into treatment centers, assisted outpatient treatment, or other facilities.
- The Order ensures discretionary grants for substance use disorder prevention, treatment, and recovery do not fund drug injection sites or illicit drug use.
- The Order stops sex offenders who receive homelessness assistance from being housed with children, and allows programs to exclusively house women and children.
- The number of individuals living on the streets in the United States on a single night during the last year of the Biden administration—274,224 —was the highest ever recorded.
- The overwhelming majority of these individuals are addicted to drugs, have a mental health disorder, or both.
- Federal and state governments have spent tens of billions of dollars on failed programs that address homelessness but not its root causes, leaving other citizens vulnerable to public safety threats.
- Shifting these individuals into long-term institutional settings for humane treatment is the most proven way to restore public order.
Conversely, this remark was issued by Congresswoman Maxine Waters (D-CA), the leading Democrat on the House Financial Services Committee, in response to President Trump’s Executive Order that facilitates local governments’ efforts to remove homeless individuals from the streets:
“Let me be very clear: forcibly removing people from the streets and institutionalizing them is not just cruel and inhumane, but also blatantly ineffective, she said. “Trump’s order also undermines evidence-based solutions to addressing this crisis like Housing-First and instead doubles down on the type of criminalization and policing that have consistently proven unsuccessful. At a time when more than 771,000 people are sleeping on the streets on any given night, this latest move—paired with Trump and Republicans’ latest action to cut funding for crucial housing and basic needs programs—will only worsen an already devastating crisis. We must abandon inhumane and expensive approaches to homelessness that only worsen the problem and rob us of hope for a brighter future. People need homes, not handcuffs; health care, not institutionalization; and above all, compassion, not criminality.”
What This Means for the Unhoused in the U.S.
The HUD report further revealed that it will continue to carry out the EO’s recommendations under Secretary Turner’s direction “by encouraging accountability through tangible outcomes, including addressing substance use disorder.” According to California Policy Lab data, an estimated 50% of homeless people say that a mental health illness affected their ability to receive housing, and another 51% said that a substance use issue played a role in their housing loss.
HUD has provided interim supporting funds to prevent homelessness for adolescents aging out of foster care, totaling more than $5 million since January 2025. An estimated 25% of the more than 20,000 young Americans who age out of foster care each year end up homeless within four years, according to the National Center for Housing and Child Welfare.
Further, more than an estimated 250,000 veterans have leased a HUD-VASH voucher to date, and more than 89,000 veterans are currently receiving temporary housing through the HUD Veterans’ Affairs Supportive Housing (HUD-VASH) program, which collaborates with the U.S. Department of Veterans’ Affairs (VA) and community partners to address veteran homelessness. The extension of rental assistance for Native American Veterans was supported by $2.2 million in new available funding under the Tribal HUD-VASH program, which Secretary Turner announced in April.
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