Trump order pushes forcible hospitalization of homeless people

[dalton99a]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2025/07/24/trump-homeless-forced-hospitalization-executive-order/

Trump order pushes forcible hospitalization of homeless people
Trump’s executive order could increase hospitalization of homeless individuals with mental health and substance use disorders.
July 24, 2025 at 5:17 p.m. EDT
By David Ovalle

President Donald Trump has directed federal agencies to find ways to make it easier to forcibly hospitalize homeless people with mental illness and addiction for longer periods — an effort to fight what the administration calls “vagrancy” threatening the streets of U.S. cities.

An executive order signed Thursday pushes federal agencies to overturn state and federal legal precedent that limits how local and state governments can involuntarily commit people who pose a risk to themselves or others.

The order said shifting homeless people into long-term institutional settings will restore public order. “Surrendering our cities and citizens to disorder and fear is neither compassionate to the homeless nor other citizens,” Trump’s order said.

The impact of Trump’s executive order remains unclear because states set laws and handle the process of involuntary commitments. Critics warned that such a policy threatens returning the nation to a darker era when people were often unjustly locked away in mental health institutions, and does nothing to help people afford housing.

Critics say cash-strapped states will not have the space to keep more people detained. The executive order, however, says federal resources could ensure “detainees with serious mental illness are not released into the public” because of a lack of bed space in jails or hospitals.

The order also instructs agencies to prioritize funding for mental health and drug courts — and to not fund “harm reduction” programs that the administration said facilitate illegal drug use. It also called for agencies to prioritize funding states and cities that to the “maximum extent” enforce laws on open-air drug use, prohibitions on urban camping, loitering and squatting.

...


https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/07/ending-crime-and-disorder-on-americas-streets/
ENDING CRIME AND DISORDER ON AMERICA’S STREETS

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Who is going to pay for their hospitalization? Medicaid?

[Silent Type]

1. Didn't Reagan kick homeless out of hospitals and treatment? I don't trust trumpsters to treat

people fairly, but I think this could be a good tool for some homeless people in the right circumstances and with decent treatment.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

2. .

I think this could be a good tool for some homeless people in the right circumstances and with decent treatment.

Forced institutionalization is almost never a good thing.

[Silent Type]

4. Yeah, well they aren't getting treatment now or it's failing. Again don't trust trump, but 60% of homeless

have some degree of mental issues at least requiring treatment, and possibly hospitalization.

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/article-abstract/2818774

There are definitely better ways to handle this, but it’s better than letting people suffer on street as we do now. Plus, I don’t think anyone is saying they have to be involuntarily institutionalized. Heck, trump will wake up in month and cut funding for treatment.

[regnaD kciN]

5. Those who are capable of holding employment will be hired out as slave labor...

...while they build "showers" for those who can't.

Sounds like a pretty effective final solution to the homeless question.

[Silent Type]

7. So, what's your solution to help homeless that actually has a chance of being enacted?

[WhiskeyGrinder]

15. Housing first.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

14. "it's better than letting people suffer on street as we do now."

I don't know that making people suffer by taking away the last shred of their own autonomy by forcing them into carceral treatment is "better."

Plus, I don’t think anyone is saying they have to be involuntarily institutionalized.

People say it all the time and it is policy in many places, and is exactly what this EO does by criminalizing homelessness. Putting someone in prison is an involuntary institutionalization.

[kerry-is-my-prez]

13. Yes. He dumped them onto the streets in Chicago, etc

With no place to live, no money, no medication, etc. Many of them were seriously ill, people with schizophrenia. They had to put up with the freezing temperatures.

[electric_blue68]

39. If i remember correctly it was never often followed up with good services etc.

[Melon]

43. It was the ACLU that led this in the Supreme Court

Reagan implemented but he did not lead this. The ACLU fought this in court and won which led to closure of federal hospitals.

Beginning in the mid-1970s the ACLU filed a series of lawsuits against mental health hospitals for involuntarily holding patients.

The ACLU's most important Supreme Court case involving the rights of people with mental illness was filed on behalf of Kenneth Donaldson, who had been involuntarily confined in a Florida State Hospital for 15 years. He was not dangerous and had received no medical treatment. In a landmark decision for mental health law in 1975, a unanimous Supreme Court ruled that states cannot confine a non-dangerous individual who can survive on his own, or with help from family and friends.


https://www.aclu.org/other/aclu-history-mental-institutions

[Bluesaph]

44. First time I agree with Dump

I have had to deal with very mentally ill family members who don’t know they are ill and would not allow themselves to be hospitalized. Two went missing while being homeless. They simply walked away not knowing what they were doing. One is now dead of an overdose. The second we are always expecting to get “that call”. Many family members have tried to help. But they are so sick they don’t think they need help and they don’t follow rules and put others (children in our homes) at risk.

Being able to force them into a hospital and treatment would have probably saved their lives.

[leftstreet]

3. Or they could just build some fucking housing

There are people in houses and apartments right now who may have substance abuse issues - is he going to round them up too?

Fuck me

[LisaL]

6. Where are they going to find these hospitals willing to

hospitalize homeless people who presumably don't have medical insurance?

[Maru Kitteh]

8. So, 19th century asylums but this time it's for PROFIT BABY. Why should prisons

get to make all of the money? Just call them “hospitals” and you can charge taxpayers some real Musk money.

[dalton99a]

9. +1. The 'hospitals' will be built and run by private prison companies

Could be a bunch of tents in the desert

[lostnfound]

10. One more way to break the bank. Nt

[Initech]

11. Another evil AF executive order.

The Heritage Foundation needs to be permanently banned from the White House.

[Melon]

12. I support this if it gets mentally ill homeless off the street

Many cities have become scary with mentally ill homeless. New York subway, Las Vegas strip, Denver 16th street. Just examples where I’ve seen violence from mentally ill people. Reagan ended the authorities ability to put people in hospitals.

[electric_blue68]

34. Most people living w Mental Illness Are Non Violent

[Melon]

35. Right. But the order allocates federal funding to direct addicts to treatment centers

And federal funding to get violent individuals off the street. This has been a topic for years needing to get done and getting addicts treatments and violent offenders off the streets. Outside of the president, I see nothing to get upset about. Some leader needed to get this done.

[electric_blue68]

37. It's how it will be done that concerns me...

Last edited Fri Jul 25, 2025, 07:21 PM - Edit history (1)

I'm for violent people being off the streets w or w/o mental illness! (duh)

Now if they genuinely put them in real hospitals...and they're violent - so, rhen what; more security? Drugged up into a harmless stupored haze, a sep wing; I guess that's sort of better.
AND what is really needed are freaking better psychotropics; with minimal side-effects! This is stuff I've read about off & on. (I've always read about a lot of different subjects) Some people won't take them, or stop bc the side effects are so nasty.

Housing with full on-site services whether for MI clients alone, or with co-something (I forgot the term) ie: drugs; is usually the best result for most challenging clients. Maaaaybe the worst need a separate jail sector within a jail/prison- but genuinely good staffing, serious but if at all possible fair protocols, and medications to diminish their aviolent actions. [there by the *grace of God, go you and I, as it is said] *luck, good genes, good circumstances, etc.

I lived on a mostly middle class block in Brooklyn with a dedicated drug-rehab housing. It was women for some years, then men for the next several. Then I moved. Never had a problem.

As for NYC subways. Been riding steadily for about 58 yrs. Haven't been on in a year or so, but planning to go certain places soonish. The stats are are still low crime rates even if some rise.

I'm not scared. I do keep an eye out. Shoot, I was riding the subway F/T in the ?late 80'a or so, when The NY Post "declared" that crime was everywhere(!!!) underground. 😑🙄

I drew a sarcastic illustration w subway riders waiting on a platform, and a bunch of criminals, forearms hands clutching knives reaching for a "take a number" device like in a supermarket deli.
And I was riding late at night, too, at times. No problem. At night you ride in the conductors car. 👍

[IzzaNuDay]

16. Next level of Alligator Alcatraz

First they came for the immigrants. Now, the homeless. who’s next in line?

[peggysue2]

22. Exactly!

This is an escalation of clearing out 'undesirables'--first the immigrants, now the homeless, then . . .

We've seen this picture show before and the end point is ugly, inhumane, despicable.

[Heidi]

23. He's bringing a nation to heel, starting with the "low/hanging fruit."

And by that I mean the most vulnerable.

[ananda]

17. Isn't he already destroying healthcare access and hospital systems...

in many areas?

So the question is: really?

What hospitals exactly?

[Bettie]

18. I know plenty of people with

family members with mental health issues...finding services for them, especially inpatient is very difficult, nearly impossible.

The system is already overburdened.

Why do I sense Stephen Miller's hand in this and it won't end with most of these people ever leaving any facility alive.

[ananda]

19. Also, this would create more homeless people who Trump..

insanely wants to house in hospitals...

Trump and his whole admin are batshit crazy
and homicidal to boot... and also genocidal.

[Melon]

36. So getting people into treatment ho need it is a bad thing? This finally allocates federal funding to expand

Mental health facilities. The answer isn’t to leave these people on the street to die or attack others.

[Bettie]

40. Where are hospitals going to get the space?

Where are hospitals going to get the personnel?

If you trust this administration to make it work, that's great that you have faith in them.

I don't.

I expect this to be a disaster of epic proportion.

[Melon]

41. It's not about the admin to me if the alternative

Is to wait another 6 years for something or nothing to happen. This is low hanging fruit every 4 years and we’ve spoken about it here on DU.

Don’t let perfection be the enemy of good. There is plenty of things to criticize in the world right now. Allocating federal funds to get violent homeless or addicted homeless treatment doesn’t seem like one of them to me.

[Bettie]

45. Like they're only rounding up criminals

in their "immigration" policy? Sure. If you trust it, that's great.

I don't and neither of us has the power to stop it or make it happen, so it's academic until we see how it is done.

I expect that the people will never be seen or heard from again, once they are removed from society.

Some people think that is a good thing, I don't.

[Melon]

46. That can happen. It happened back when we had mental hospitals.

But to be clear, there are people on our streets that are flat out dangerous. All of the homeless are not sweet and down in their luck. Was it last year a lady was lit on fire in a subway? Some people need to be locked away for our protection. We’ll see how it goes, but it’s not good now.

[MineralMan]

20. What facilities are they planning to use?

There aren't any today. There is also nobody to staff such facilities. We shut down all facilities of that type long ago.

So, this is an idea that can go nowhere.

[travelingthrulife]

21. These people are simply incapable of connecting dots.

I expect the 'hospital' will look just like the concentration camp tents.

[Heidi]

24. By "hospitals," he no doubt means warehouses run by contractors.

The “patients” (i.e. prisoners) won’t get “better” or enjoy improved health, but “out of sight, out of mind,” right?

[Passages]

25. If he gets his way, I hope people understand this will include innocent kids.

I despise this man more than I can say.

[indusurb]

26. Call this what it is, imprisonment

Imprisonment for being poor.

[dalton99a]

27. +1. Imprisonment and burial

[obamanut2012]

28. And aslo Democrats, LGBT+, whoever they say is mentally ill

Reread the EO. Look for the "ors."

[bucolic_frolic]

29. First stop to concentration camps

[multigraincracker]

30. Has any other country solved this problem.

We had large state hospitals that failed and were emptied and left to rot. Going to do it all again with the same results?
So, my question is, is there a model that works that we can copy?

[WhiskeyGrinder]

32. Finland has made a good deal of progress with its housing first approach, and housing first combined with wraparound

tailored support services is generally seen as the gold standard for ending homelessness for the mentally ill or addicted.

[Melon]

42. Greece closed their mental hospitals and the result

Is what we deal with in cities like San Fran. There needs to be a balance, but authorities need the ability to check mentally ill people into centers and get them off the streets.

[IrishAfricanAmerican]

31. "Hospitals" 😂😂😂

[orangecrush]

33. Work camps

ICE will round them up.

Slave labor.

[EndlessWire]

38. Isn't Trump the guy

who wanted them cleared from DC because he didn't want to have to look at them? I don't see any charity in this, although they would have to at least feed them. This is going to backfire on the Orange Pedophile, for sure.