Free Republic

President Trump has taken extraordinary measures in the nation’s capital to fulfill an ordinary function of local government: keeping clean, orderly streets. His actions seem unusual because government officials in America’s cities long ago abandoned the basics. They have been led astray by academics and activists who promised them crimeless cities and an end to homelessness if only they established a right to housing and eradicated income inequality. These idealistic public-policy frameworks have failed to achieve the desired outcomes anywhere in the U.S. Instead, they’ve ushered in the worst homelessness crisis on record. President Trump’s strategy is straightforward: Everyone living...

Federal officials have cleared about 75 homeless camps around the nation’s capital under President Trump’s effort to clean up Washington, DC — and they’re not done yet. United States Park Police have removed dozens of tents since the president penned the “Making the District of Columbia Safe and Beautiful” executive order in March, the Department of the Interior told The Post Friday. Authorities have also scrubbed up to 80 graffiti sites from Capitol Hill Parks as of Aug. 6, Interior officials said. Interior leaders, led by Secretary Doug Burgum, are revising guidelines so there is a no-tolerance policy for illegal...

The White House says those living in homeless encampments in the nation's capital will have two choices in the coming days: accept treatment at a homeless shelter, or go to jail. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt announced the ultimatum during a Tuesday press conference as reporters prodded about President Donald Trump's federal takeover of Washington, D.C.'s law enforcement. She said many of the homeless encampments across the city have already been dismantled, and those that remain she expected to be dealt with this week. "Seventy homeless encampments have been removed by the U.S. Park Police," Leavitt said, adding that...

President Trump is holding a press conference this morning, where he is expected to make a major announcement on his plans to end violent crime and homelessness in Washington, DC. As The Gateway Pundit reported, President Trump announced over the weekend that he will hold a press conference this morning, and it will “essentially, stop violent crime in Washington, D.C.” ”It has become one of the most dangerous cities anywhere in the World. It will soon be one of the safest!!!” the President said. .... Snip.... The President is expected to begin his press conference in the White House briefing...

Hundreds of National Guard troops were expected to flood the streets of Washington DC as President Donald Trump threatens a federal takeover of the capital. The move came as Trump blasted the crime and homelessness in DC while deploying 120 FBI agents to work alongside D.C. police and other federal law enforcement officers in the nation's capital. 'The Homeless have to move out, IMMEDIATELY. We will give you places to stay, but FAR from the Capital,' Trump posted on Truth Social. 'The Criminals, you don't have to move out. We're going to put you in jail where you belong,' 'Be...

Guest post by Joe Kovacs ‘Before the tents, squalor, filth, and Crime, it was the most beautiful Capital in the World. It will soon be that again.’ Saying the American public “is not going to put up with it any longer,” President Donald Trump is now providing some details about cleaning up the nation’s capital city of Washington, D.C. On Truth Social on Sunday, Trump said a news conference is slated for 10 a.m. Monday in the White House Press Briefing Room to address the matter. “I’m going to make our Capital safer and more beautiful than it ever was...

We’re having a News Conference tomorrow in the White House. I’m going to make our Capital safer and more beautiful than it ever was before. The Homeless have to move out, IMMEDIATELY. We will give you places to stay, but FAR from the Capital. The Criminals, you don’t have to move out. We’re going to put you in jail where you belong. It’s all going to happen very fast, just like the Border. We went from millions pouring in, to ZERO in the last few months. This will be easier — Be prepared! There will be no “MR. NICE GUY.”...

New York City has officially opened its first shelter for transgender and gender-nonconforming people who are homeless. Officials say it’s the only city-funded shelter of its kind in the country and will help 150 transgender New Yorkers as the Trump administration has rolled back rights for the trans community, barring access to medical care, military service and federal documents that reflect their gender identity. The city is fully funding the facility in Long Island City, which will cost $65 million to operate through 2030. “ We've watched so many other corporations and foundations and businesses just like completely turn their...

The public is fed up with having to climb over drug-addled zombies and mumbling, mentally deranged vagrants on the streets and in the subways. But New York City's far-left politicians insist the homeless should be catered to on their own terms, including providing them with clean needles to support their addictions, and medical care wherever they choose to sleep. The public's fears and disgust be damned. Last Thursday President Donald Trump took sides with the public. By executive order, he announced that federal funding for housing and social services would no longer go to the "failed programs" that facilitate the...

It’s a “housing crisis.” It’s because Republicans are evil and don’t care about the downtrodden. It’s because capitalism is cruel. It's because we don't throw enough money at the problem.We’re talking about the homelessness crisis, and the Democrats who are in charge of many of the cities hardest hit by the devastation will blame almost anything other than their own failed policies. But according to a study from researchers at the University of Chicago and Dartmouth College—not exactly institutions known as conservative bastions—there’s another reason behind the startling rise in the homeless population, and it’s not what Gavin Newsom, JB...

In a major move aimed at restoring law, order, and basic sanity and hygiene, President Trump is taking direct action to reopen mental health institutions and end the open-air drug chaos that’s turned once-thriving cities into poop-filled war zones.

By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, it is hereby ordered: Section 1. Purpose and Policy. Endemic vagrancy, disorderly behavior, sudden confrontations, and violent attacks have made our cities unsafe. The number of individuals living on the streets in the United States on a single night during the last year of the previous administration — 274,224 — was the highest ever recorded. The overwhelming majority of these individuals are addicted to drugs, have a mental health condition, or both. Nearly two-thirds of homeless individuals report having regularly...

President Donald Trump took steps on Thursday to end the massive takeover of crime and homelessness on the streets after Democrat leaders in Blue states have failed to do anything to make our streets safer. During a signing at the White House, President Trump signed the "ENDING CRIME AND DISORDER ON AMERICA'S STREETS" Executive Order, which aims to restore "public order" to cities and remove homeless individuals from the streets by enforcing no urban camping, urban squatting, and loitering, among others. "The number of individuals living on the streets in the United States on a single night during the last...

Homelessness spending at all levels — federal down to local — topped $700 million for the Portland metro area in the 2023-24 fiscal year, a newly released report found. Watch the full report tonight on #TheStoryKGW at 6:30 p.m.

The death of a mother and Army veteran whose body was found at a homeless encampment in Los Angeles was ruled an accident and due to drug use. On May 12, Lucrecia Macias Barajas, 46, was found dead inside a sidewalk tent that was reportedly locked in the Westlake District near downtown L.A. Inside the tent were the bodies of Barajas and a man, now identified as Fredy Pojoy Sajqui, 39. The nature of their relationship was unclear. On July 9, the L.A. County medical examiner’s office announced both Barajas and Sajqui died from the effects of fentanyl and methamphetamine....

As a teenager in the late 1970s, Steve Richardson was sweeping and stocking shelves at a toy store on the edge of L.A.’s Skid Row when he noticed the first signs of a monumental change in the city. Day after day, workers, hired from the surrounding streets to unload trucks full of toys, would take the empty boxes and transform them into makeshift shelters where they would spend the night. “They were called cardboard condos,” said Richardson, a Skid Row leader now known as General Dogon. “They went on block after block.” At the same time, Los Angeles Times columnist...

A woman brutally assaulted by an alleged transient in Los Angeles’ Los Feliz neighborhood is calling on city officials to do more to keep residents safe. The violence unfolded on June 18 when Donna DeChristopher, 52, was walking home from running errands in what she describes as a normally safe, walkable area near her residence on Sunset Drive. The 52-year-old spotted a homeless man that she’s seen in the area and believes lives in a nearby encampment not far from Thomas Starr King Middle School. She says the man, described as a Hispanic male in his 20’s, ran up to...

The Adams administration has inked a nearly $1 billion contract with the hotel industry for emergency shelter space — despite boasting that the migrant crisis is tapering off, The Post has learned. Taxpayers are on the hook for the $929.1 million reupped with the Hotel Association of New York City Foundation as the total city population still includes a whopping 86,000 people, including homeless individuals and asylum seekers. “These hotel units will be used by social services vendors to house emergency shelter clients who have entered the [Department of Homeless Services] shelter system,” the agency said in a notice posted...

The Center Square) – A nonprofit is in line to get McClean County tax dollars and private donations to build 50 cabin tiny homes for homeless individuals. Critics say similar projects haven't resulted in a decline in homelessness. At a recent City Council meeting, Bloomington city council member Sheila Montney pointed to data from Denver and Seattle, cities that have implemented similar low-barrier housing models. “The outcomes from Denver are significantly concerning to me,” she said, noting that 19 residents of micro-communities there had died, 258 returned to homelessness, 61 were jailed, and 105 had unknown outcomes, statistics she described...

Eleven people were stabbed in a church-run homeless shelter in Oregon that is directly across from the local police HQ, according to authorities. At least one member of staff at the Union Gospel Mission in Salem is among the wounded following the shocking scenes at around 7:15 p.m. Sunday, police said. The 11 wounded were rushed to a Salem hospital with “varying types of injuries,” police said. The suspect, who is in custody, had arrived at the mission the previous night and was about to check into the 150-person ministry again for a second night when he started brawling just...