The recent Supreme Court decision to ban street homelessness has led to
discrimination and criminalization.The decision allowing states and local governments to
create laws to prevent the homeless from living on the streets has resulted in the
destruction of encampments, forced involuntary sheltering, detainment, citations, fines,
jail, and criminal records. Systemic fear and discrimination have increased among the
homeless. Policies, programs, and funding that have been used to help the homeless
are being questioned and a new housing model is being considered by the current
administration.
The Housing First model that has been used for more than twenty five years to
advance permanent housing for the homeless is in jeopardy. The approach is being
questioned because of its high cost, lack of rehabilitation, a sobriety requirement, and
its ineffectiveness in reducing or ending homelessness. A new approach that
emphasizes treatment and even a faith-based emphasis is being considered as a
replacement.
The 3.6 billion dollar appropriation for the homelessness has been frozen. A federal
judge has lifted the freeze but service providers haven’t received any money in months.
Allocations are nowhere in sight.
The federally funded Emergency Housing Voucher program for renters is being cut.
Without these vouchers more people will live on the streets homeless. Thousands of
people are now at risk of becoming homeless when the funds run out next year.
To reduce or and/or end homelessness, the current administration has imposed
banning the homeless from living on city streets, the elimination of the Housing First
model, the freeze on homeless funding, and the elimination of the housing voucher
program, “tent cities” are being considered as an alternative for housing the homeless.
The plan includes using federal land for involuntary relocations. Doctors, psychiatrists,
social workers, and drug rehabilitation specialists will be brought into the tent cities to
treat the homeless.
The current options for reducing or ending homelessness are criminalizing and
discriminating. The proposal to segregate the homeless, jeopardizes all the work that
has been done to foster diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in America. A brief look at

the history of forced housing shows that it doesn't achieve its goals but makes a
situation worse.

An historical perspective includes slavery, the deinstitutionalization of the mentally ill,
Native American reservations, Japanese internment camps, and Nazi concentration
prisons.
The first group to be segregated and discriminated against was the Black population
during America’s colonial period. Slavery was used as the forcible approach to housing
on the master’s land, which lasted for hundreds of years.
In the 1980s, deinstitutionalization of the mentally ill moved the mentally ill from
hospitals to a community-based model. The approach didn’t help homelessness, it
resulted in flooding the streets with more homeless people. A lack of facilities, doctors,
psychiatrists, and social workers added to the homelessness crisis.
The housing of slaves, corralling Native Americans on reservations, the
internment of the Japanese during WWII, and the creation of Nazi concentration camps
are examples of forcible housing. Forcible housing for the homeless, does not solve the
problem. After they are released, they don’t have money, jobs, and permanent housing.
The effort to make the homeless invisible worked, but the systemic problem still exists.
The current administration's proposal to create tent cities has not been thought out.
History has shown that forcibly relocating people for whatever reasons has not worked.
Poor living conditions prevail, individuals and families have limited privacy, basic
necessities are not met, mental and physical health disorders still exist, and further
discrimination exists after confinement.
Hate, racism, and bigotry toward the homeless will not end with tent cities. The
systemic inequalities, economic disparities, and discrimination will continue to prevent
homelessness from being reduced or ended.