CONTACT: Mariah McGough, mariah@vocal-us.org
VOCAL-US RESPONDS TO PRESIDENT TRUMP’S EXECUTIVE ORDER TO EXPAND THE TICKETING AND ARRESTING OF PEOPLE UNABLE TO AFFORD HOUSING
NEW YORK — Today, the Trump administration issued the “Ending Vagrancy and Restoring Order” executive order that could deny funding to cities unless they ticket and arrest homeless people, and open the door to national rounds of people sleeping on streets and in public who have nowhere to go.
“This executive order is an attack on people whose only crime is being unable to survive our nation’s housing crisis, or find mental healthcare. But what else should Americans expect from our billionaire landlord President,” said Jawanza Williams, Director of Organizing for VOCAL-US. “Let’s be clear: President Trump is not interested in getting people into housing they can afford, or mental health care they need. He is only interested in getting people off the streets, even if it means into a jail cell or detention centers for the homeless. These actions are not just cruel, they are ineffective, they waste tax dollars and will only worsen our nation’s historic homeless crisis. Instead of looking to the leadership of local communities, the Trump Administration is again ignoring their solutions and imposing policies that don’t work. When more than half of Americans can’t afford to get by, we need investments in solutions like housing, services, and care – not more cuts.”
BACKGROUND:
Our country has a housing crisis – more people are experiencing homelessness now than in the past few decades. High housing costs, the high cost of living and low wages are fueling this crisis. This executive order – on top of billions in cuts to healthcare, food and basic government assistance through the recently passed “big beautiful bill” – paired with laws that make homelessness illegal, will only make America’s housing crisis worse. Americans will lose what little support they get, more people will be forced to live on the streets, affordable care will be impossible to find, and people will either die, get trapped in our broken prison system or forced into government run detention camps.
Only housing can solve homelessness. Only healthcare can solve our mental health crisis. Instead of investing in solutions, President Trump and the GOP are cutting vital programs, making it illegal to be homeless and poor, while giving massive tax breaks to billionaires.
About VOCAL-US:
VOCAL-US is a national organization dedicated to ending AIDS, the drug war, mass incarceration, and homelessness, and the next chapter for Voices of Communities Activists and Leaders. VOCAL-US embodies years of work of VOCAL-NY, in addition to new fights taken on by VOCAL-KY and VOCAL-TX, by harnessing advocacy by directly-impacted people to a national scale.
###