President Trump on Thursday signed an executive order making it easier for cities and states to remove homeless people from the streets and get them treatment elsewhere. The order also calls on Attorney General Pam Bondi to “reverse judicial precedents and end consent decrees that limit state and local governments’ ability to commit individuals on the streets who are a risk to themselves or others,” according to a White House fact sheet.

On the surface, it’s framed as a solution — but underneath, it represents a troubling expansion of forced institutionalization, with few real answers about long-term care or housing.

Trump’s recent executive order on homelessness, which prioritizes forced relocation of unhoused people to treatment centers and penalizes open-air encampments, reads more like a campaign tactic than a compassionate or effective public policy. While public frustration around homelessness is understandable, this order channels that frustration in the wrong direction — targeting symptoms instead of causes, and people instead of systems.

Framing homelessness as a threat to public safety rather than a humanitarian crisis is not only dangerous — it’s inaccurate.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said, “By removing vagrant criminals from our streets the Trump Administration will ensure that Americans feel safe…”  

This kind of language paints unhoused people as violent offenders, despite studies — like one from the University of Central Florida — showing that unhoused individuals are typically arrested for nonviolent infractions like public intoxication or shoplifting, not for violent crime. In fact, research shows they are far more likely to be victims of violence than perpetrators. 

Trump’s approach to homelessness relies on institutionalization, encampment sweeps, and prioritizing states that crack down on outdoor sleeping. But it offers no real investment in building or preserving affordable housing — which experts across the political spectrum agree is the core issue. Jesse Rabinowitz of the National Homelessness Law Center said it best: “Trump’s expected actions are reckless, expensive, and make homelessness worse… Real leaders focus on solutions, not on kicking people when they are down.” 

Supporters of the order argue that it gets people into treatment, but forced treatment rarely leads to long-term recovery — especially when it’s divorced from stable housing. Research has consistently shown that Housing First, which prioritizes placing people in permanent housing before mandating treatment or sobriety, reduces homelessness by up to 88 percent and lowers costly emergency care visits. The problem isn’t that Housing First failed — it’s that we’ve underfunded and inconsistently applied it across the country. 

This order also disproportionately affects Black and brown communities, LGBTQ people, and people with disabilities — groups who are already overrepresented in the unhoused population. And in cities like D.C., where Trump is directing federal agencies to evict people from public parks, the move will simply push people out of sight, further away from services and case managers. 

A few high-profile, tragic incidents involving homeless individuals should not dictate national policy. Fear should not be driving our response to poverty. If we want real results, we need real solutions: housing, mental health access, wraparound services — and most importantly, humanity.

Homelessness isn’t a crime. And treating it like one won’t solve it.

Lindsey Granger is a News Nation contributor and co-host of The Hill’s commentary show “Rising.” This column is an edited transcription of her on-air commentary.