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Last week, Presdient Donald Trump issued an executive order that purports to end “crime and disorder on America’s streets” by further criminalizing unhoused people. To do this, Trump is directing the Department of Justice to pursue “civil commitment” (i.e. involuntary admission to a psychiatric setting for forced “treatment”) and to funnel federal resources into programs that utilize this grossly regressive solution.
The alternative strategy to addressing homelessness is known as “housing first,” which (as the name suggests) prioritizes finding shelter for unhoused people. A 2023 report from the Department of Housing and Urban Development found “overwhelming” evidence that housing first strategies were better at decreasing rates of homelessness, especially for disabled people, families, and those living with HIV/AIDS.
Currently, housing first approaches predominate among local community service agencies. However, Trump’s executive order threatens loss of federal funding for these agencies unless they shift to civil commitment approaches. The day of the executive order, Los Angeles County officials predicted a massive budget shortfall. In a meeting of the county’s Department of Homelessness Services and Housing, Director Sarah Mahin was blunt:
“The federal government is on an all-out assault on funding and services for our most vulnerable… Our housing authorities no longer have vouchers to issue. Medi-CAL is being cut. Food assistance is being cut. The people we serve are more at risk than ever before and resources are disappearing.”
Even with housing-first strategies, the rate of involuntary psychiatric hospitalization in the United States is staggeringly high. A 2014 estimate suggested that at least 54% of inpatient psychiatric admissions were involuntary, often housing people in for-profit hospitals. These hospitals typically bill those involuntarily admitted at exorbitant rates. A February 2025 investigation by the San Francisco Chronicle identified rampant neglect and sexual abuse in California’s for-profit psychiatric institutions.
Another sign of the depravity in this regime’s approach to unhoused people is the behavior of Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Since May, ICE has loitered outside a Los Angeles homeless shelter, arresting Venezuelan immigrants as they return the shelter from work. Presumably, those detained face a different form of incarceration in the form of overcrowded and inhumane detention facilities in the United States or abroad.
Notably, Trump’s order lumps together the unhoused and “individuals with serious mental illness or addiction.” There is overlap between these two groups as capitalist emphases on production and efficiency are disabling for those with neuro-differences. This disablement can create financial (and, therefore, housing) insecurity.
Additionally, the experience of homelessness is itself a trauma that can exacerbate and/or create new disabilities. This is a major reason why housing first approaches are so successful. Simply providing shelter for someone experiencing housing insecurity alleviates a major stressor, easing the path forward.
Yet, mental health issues and substance use are prevalent even among housing secure people - despite what this order seems to suggest. Therefore, the administration’s action points to a long-term remodeling of American society where, starting with unhoused people, anyone who falls outside arbitrary ideas of “normality” could be subject to institutionalization.
This has been true in the past where queer people were deemed mentally ill by the medical profession throughout much of the 20th century. As a result, countless queer people were institutionalized and subjected to medical torture in attempts to instill sexual and gender conformity. Trump’s rhetoric around “gender insanity” suggests a longing to return to that pseudoscientific consensus.
The margin between having a place to stay and not having one is thin. And it’s getting thinner. In March, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. moved to restructure the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), including the elimination of the Administration for Community Living (ACL).
The ACL was created in 2012 to bring together HHS programs for older adults and disabled people. Both groups face housing insecurity and have complex medical needs which require expensive long-term care services. ACL has sought to address both by providing grants to support employment programs for disabled people and independent living facilities.
One ACL-funded program facing elimination is the long-term care ombudsman. This program provides people in long-term care facilities with an advocate who helps ensure that they are receiving quality care and assists with long-term planning for care continuance. In the region where I grew up (Akron, Ohio), the local long-term care ombudsman program assisted with 1,800 requests in 2024 at no cost to those served.
In a statement following the announcement of ACL’s elimination, the Disability and Aging Collaborative warned of an impending crisis:
“At a time when the vast majority of aging adults, and nearly all disabled people want to live in their communities, this disruptive change threatens to increase rates of institutionalization, homelessness, and long-lasting economic hardships.”
The ACL’s closure and this new executive order, combined with severe cuts to Medicaid, will further marginalize disabled people. If allowed to take effect, financial and housing insecurity likely awaits many.
On July 26, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) turned 35. Enacted in 1990, the law was a major step forward for disability rights in the United States. The progress was the result of intense organizing by activists to establish basic protections for disabled Americans. When President George H.W. Bush signed the ADA, he told the crowd of disabled people assembled before him:
“This is an immensely important day. A day that belongs to all of you… And everywhere I look, I see people who have dedicated themselves to making sure that this day would come to pass."
The promise of the act was affirmed in 1999 by the Supreme Court in Olmstead v. L.C. The opinion in Olmstead, written by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, found that the ADA requires the government to house disabled people in community settings (rather than institutional settings) when possible. Failure to do so constitutes ableist discrimination that is prohibited under the ADA.
Olmstead likely remains a major legal hurdle for the Trump administration’s plans to institutionalize the unhoused. However, the current Supreme Court is a likely ally to the new executive order. Their 2024 decision in Grants Pass v. Johnson (authored by Justice Neil Gorsuch) held that the criminalization of homelessness does not constitute “cruel and unusual punishment.”
The ADA represents major progress toward addressing systemic ableism, but it was not sufficient - even before the executive order promoting psychiatric institutionalization. Efforts to combat the worst abuses of the Trump administration must include disability justice as a core pillar. This includes protecting local services from federal coercion, rejecting the culture of disposability around disabled and/or unhoused people, and including disabled activists in the conversation when envisioning our political future.
Civil rights are being eroded at breakneck pace, and our only forward is together.
from the archive
