As President Donald Trump prepares to send 800 National Guard troops to the nation’s capital to crack down on crime and homelessness, social workers and local officials are worried the president's proposal will only worsen the problem.
Trump plans to seize control of Washington’s Metropolitan Police Department, sweep homeless people off the city’s streets, and end “crime, bloodshed, bedlam and squalor and worse,” he said at an Aug. 11 press conference.
“We’re going to be removing homeless encampments from beautiful parks, which now, a lot of people can’t walk on,” Trump told reporters, adding that his administration is getting “rid of the people from underpasses and public spaces from all over the city.”
More: Drastic changes coming to homeless services, new Trump order promises
But it’s unclear exactly how the president’s order for people sleeping outdoors to "move out, immediately" would actually work. In the Aug. 11 order, the president offered few specific details on the logistics of the effort. He told reporters there were “many places” people could go and his administration planned to “help them as much as you can help.”
