It’s unclear where unhoused people are ending up as authorities clear D.C. encampments : NPR
The federal authorities clean the homeless camps in Washington, DC in the context of President Trump’s efforts to repress crime and burn in the national capital. Where do people without housing take place?
Ari Shapiro, host:
President Trump said one of his objectives in sending federal agents and the National Guard to Washington, DC, is to clean the homeless camps. He linked them to what he calls crime and burn out of control. One week, the White House says that dozens of camps have been dismantled. But we do not know where the people who lived there were gone. Jennifer Ludden of NPR is here in the studio. Hey, Jennifer.
Jennifer Ludden, Byline: Hi.
Shapiro: Tell us more specifically about the number of places that have been eliminated here at DC
Ludden: So the White House says that in last week, 44 homeless camps were deleted. We are talking about small groups of tents in most places. He indicates that this includes all the tents on federal property and that the federal teams reported, quoting, “no negative confrontations” and no arrests. And this last point is a relief for local homeless service providers who say they have also heard of any arrest. But there was another twist which took place this afternoon in a homeless center which serves the homeless. The word went around for the authorities to present themselves and check if someone had an arrest warrant, and people there pack their personal effects and left.
Shapiro: So where did people who were forced to move?
Ludden: So, the homeless service providers tell me that it is likely that many always live outside, around DC, by moving to try to escape the police or federal agents. They say that some have gone to temporary shelters – the government of the district has made additional beds available – or some have left the city for Virginia or Maryland. I spoke with a man, Greg Evans, 39 years old. He was on a bus, so this recording is not great.
Greg Evans: I just bounced back in the houses of certain friends at the moment, trying to understand what to do next. Currently, I’m waiting for another apartment, but I don’t know when it will happen.
Ludden: He is therefore on a waiting list for a subsidized apartment because he says that a drug trafficker has mainly resumed the last place he lived. He had a hard time with drug addiction and said he just needed to leave there. This is why he found himself outside outside.
Shapiro: wow. And some other states led by the Republicans have said that they were sending hundreds of soldiers from the National Guard here to Washington. What does this great push for the longer term mean to reduce homelessness?
Ludden: You know, the White House did not really talk about this. This is supervised to improve public security. Although lawyers underline the homeless are much more likely to be victims of crime than the authors. But defenders also say that this type of mass disturbance will make people enter the accommodation. Jesse Rabinowitz is with the National Homelessness Law Center and said that he had never seen camp clearing like last week.
Jesse Rabinowitz: It was so fast that I was worried that people were unable to save vital documents, drugs, inheritances, clothes, things like that.
Ludden: And of course, Greg Evans, the man moved with whom I spoke, says he lost his tent and some clothes.
Shapiro: Losing things like family inheritances must be incredibly traumatic for displaced people.
Ludden: It’s absolutely traumatic. And just the mass presence of application officers – it is something else that could make people more difficult to help people. Adam Rocap with the Miriam’s Kitchen social services group – they help connect people to housing.
Adam Rocap: It is more difficult for us to follow and find someone, or people trust us less, even if – if we have nothing to do with the application. Why would they trust someone who tries to help if people move?
Ludden: He and others also point out that this federal increase clearly costs a lot of federal money, and they wonder why some of them could not be spent instead for permanent affordable housing.
Shapiro: Jennifer Ludden of NPR. THANKS.
Ludden: Thank you.
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