Truthout:
When Donald Trump issued an executive order (EO) to “remove vagrant individuals from our streets” in July, his administration upended decades of precedent and best practices in treating both unhoused people and those with severe mental health disorders. The announced policy shift not only encourages “civil commitment of individuals with mental illness who pose risks to themselves or the public or are living on the streets and cannot care for themselves,” but also ends federal support for Housing First — a policy that provides shelter to people in need without conditions — and instead mandates that housing provision be tied to participation in sobriety programs. It further ends support for safe injection sites and distribution of clean needles and orders the attorney general and secretaries of Health and Human Services (HHS), Housing and Urban Development (HUD), and Transportation to enforce prohibitions on “urban camping and loitering.”
The administration has marketed the executive order as “compassionate,” but a wide array of public health advocates, unhoused people, mental health and medical workers, civil libertarians, public interest attorneys and mutual aid groups have made clear that the order is anything but.
“To frame something as compassionate when it is punitive, hateful, and plays into stereotypes about the unhoused and people with mental illnesses is wrong,” Jacqueline Seitz, deputy director of health privacy at the Legal Action Center in New York City, told Truthout. “States have enacted strict laws to protect people being treated for mental health conditions, substance use disorders and HIV, so it is not totally clear to me — and may eventually need to be decided by a court — how the EO will play out.” Specifically, Seitz anticipates potential conflicts between police, mental health providers, and medical staff over what information can be shared and for what purpose. Continue reading>>>
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