ACLU Condemns Trump Executive Order Targeting Disabled and Unhoused People
July 24, 2025 5:00 pm
“WASHINGTON – President Trump signed an executive order today directing states to criminalize unhoused people and institutionalize people with mental health disabilities and substance use disorder.
The order, titled “Ending Crime and Disorder on American Streets,” directs the Justice Department to expand indefinite forced treatment for people with mental health disabilities or substance use disorder, and those living on the street who “cannot care for themselves.” The order also purports to eliminate federal funding for evidence-based programs, like harm reduction and housing first, that save lives, and directs federal funds toward cities and states that criminalizesubstance use disorder, punish people for sleeping outdoors, or enforce other laws targeting unhoused people.
The order also calls for sweeping federal data collection on unhoused people and those with mental health disabilities, raising serious concerns about surveillance, privacy, and how such data could be used to justify further criminalization. Instead of funding services or support, the administration is prioritizing profiling and control. …..
Scout Katovich, senior staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union’s Trone Center for Justice and Equality, issued the following statement in response to the executive order:……’Pushing people into locked institutions and forcing treatment won’t solve homelessness or support people with disabilities. ….President Trump is blaming individuals for systemic failures and doubling down on policies that punish people with nowhere else to go – all after signing a law that decimates Medicaid, the number one payer for addiction and mental health services……Homelessness is a policy failure. Weaponizing federal funding to fuel cruel and ineffective approaches to homelessness won’t solve this crisis.’ https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/aclu-condemns-trump-executive-order-targeting-disabled-and-unhoused-people?blm_aid=138215425
My son, a Navy veteran, has been struggling with treatment resistant major depression since the age of 11. He is now 46. He can stabilize for months, or occasionally years, but when the meds fail, he goes downhill rapidly. The VA system can never respond fast enough, and he ends up on the streets, then back to months in a psych ward, and then goes back to patching together job, apartment, etc., and then struggles to re establish his relationships with his two sons. He is intelligent, caring, insightful, artistic, and really pushes himself to contribute to society. He won’t even speed; he has to keep his insurance low to pay child support. He is one of millions facing life one step at a time, and he is a prime candidate to be institutionalized if he is in the wrong place at the wrong time.
My heart bleeds for all of us caught in this vicious trap. Parents, children, adults, mentally ill, addicted, unhoused; everyone has a story, a family, and value, and no one has the resources to go it alone. And under this cabal, we are no longer even eligible for thoughts and prayers.
The cruelty is the point.
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