Trump once again threatens DC 'takeover' after signing order to crack down on homelessness
Trump signs executive order to combat homelessness
President Donald Trump is touting a new executive order as he says his administration?s got a better way to handle homelessness across the country. And on Friday, he made an example of D.C. to try to make his point.
WASHINGTON - President Donald Trump is touting a new executive order as he says his administration’s got a better way to handle homelessness across the country.
On Friday, he made an example of D.C. to try to make his point.
What he's saying:
Trump told reporters that he’s sick and tired of seeing tents full of people in front of the White House.
He believes his new executive order will help homeless people get the care they need and also make city streets safer.
Before Trump for Scotland Friday, he once again threatened to take over D.C.
RELATED: DC's Mayor responds to Trump's takeover comments
"We’ve got to get the mayor to run this city properly," he said. "This city has to be run. I have the right to take it over."
The president–this time–was musing a federal takeover of the District because of how it handles homelessness.
Trump said he’d remove encampments by the White House and complained to reporters about their optics.
"When leaders come to see me to make a trade deal for billions and billions and trillions of dollars and they come in and they see tents, we can’t have that. It doesn't sound nice, but can't have that," he said.
Big picture view:
Trump’s remarks come just one day after he signed an executive order to make it easier for cities and states across the country to remove homeless people off the streets and put them into institutional treatment centers in certain instances, encouraging the use of involuntary civil commitment.
"We can’t do that--especially in Washington D.C. I talk to the mayor about it all the time. I say, ‘you’ve got to get rid of the tents, we can’t have it,’" Trump said.
The White House said its new approach will restore public order. It directs federal support to programs focused on rehab and treatment and prioritizes giving grant money to cities and states that crack down on camping, loitering and squatting.
Local activists, however, say this order won’t help the homeless at all.
What they're saying:
"I cannot emphasize enough how damaging this order is," said Jesse Rabinowitz, who works for the D.C.-based National Homelessness Law Center.
He said institutionalization does not work.
"Ethically and effectively, forced treatment doesn’t work," Rabinowitz said. "This executive order doesn’t do any of that. All it does is make it easier to punish people and institutionalize people who have nowhere else to go."
Homelessness is solved instead, Rabinowitz said, by providing folks with housing, support systems and healthcare.
"This executive order doesn’t help anybody and it’s shameful, it’s government overreach and it will take homelessness worse," said Rabinowitz.
FOX 5 did reach out to the mayor’s office for a statement in response to Trump but they didn’t provide one.