Cruel Executive Order from Trump Administration Pushes Incarceration of People Experiencing Homelessness and Individuals with Mental Health Issues
On July 24, 2025, Donald Trump issued a new Executive Order that is a direct effort to expand the prison-industrial complex. It encourages incarcerating people who have not committed crimes, but whom this administration wants removed from the public – namely, individuals experiencing homelessness, individuals with mental health issues, and individuals suffering from addiction. The order, titled “Ending Crime and Disorder on America’s Streets,” is a continuation of the strategy of depicting anyone whose rights they seek to take away as inherently dangerous: immigrants, transgender women, and other groups .
This all might sound too far-fetched to be true, but we implore each of you to read the language of the Executive Order yourselves. For example, it requires the federal government to end support for the humane and evidence-based policies that facilitate access to housing and stability, and pushes states to restore involuntary civil commitment programs that inhumanely institutionalize and incarcerate individuals “with mental illness” and those who “are living on the streets and cannot care for themselves.” The United States already has the world’s highest incarceration rate, and this order will exacerbate that while lining the pockets of the private prison industry.
Poverty, homelessness, mental health challenges, and addiction are public health issues, not crimes; but rather than address the root causes of these issues and sufficiently fund proven safety net resources, the EO seeks to return to a pre-1960’s world of forced institutionalization. It’s unconscionable to punish people for being unhoused and lacking mental health support, while simultaneously gutting Medicaid, Medicare, food stamps, public housing, public education, and other health insurance and social welfare programs.
This is where you come in. For decades, SLC has been fighting for the basic human rights and dignity of people experiencing homelessness, and we have successfully struck down many local ordinances and state statutes that criminalize and perpetuate homelessness. SLC’s work in this area is now more critical than ever, as the order pushes local governments to enforce, among others, “prohibitions on urban camping and loitering,” which will lead to the costly incarceration of homeless individuals who have nowhere else to go.
The new order underscores the urgent need for SLC’s advocacy, which has resulted in precedent-setting orders establishing the rights of homeless people to be in public spaces, to request charity, to protect their personal property, and even the right to engage in the basic human needs of sleeping and eating. SLC has also litigated cases for lack of treatment in the kinds of institutions this Executive Order seeks to push people into, institutions that perpetrated untold harms and abuse against children and individuals with disabilities. With your support, we can continue holding the government accountable and protecting the rights of some of the most vulnerable among us.
In addition to supporting SLC’s criminalization of homelessness project, you can get involved in other ways, including: (1) Educate yourself (and others) on our country’s long history of utilizing institutionalization and involuntary civil commitment as a way to remove and control people the government deems “unfavorable;” (2) Organize with grassroots collectives, organizations, and advocates, and support legal defense networks, housing and bail funds, and harm reduction coalitions; and (3) Engage in the age old practice of community care, support your local mutual aid networks, peer support groups, and other community support and therapy groups.
Together, we can effectively resist the oppression of marginalized communities by this administration. Whether it’s the rights of transgender individuals, immigrants, people with disabilities, individuals experiencing homelessness, or any other group being targeted by this administration’s cruelty, get invoved and make your voice heard before it’s too late.