Donald Trump wants 'the homeless to move out' – while simultaneously dismantling homelessness prevention

“The Homeless have to move out, IMMEDIATELY.” You can tell by the caps that this message came from the highest of offices. If you walk one and a half blocks past the White House, you reach another important office, home of Street Sense, the street paper in Washington DC which, like Big Issue, offers people experiencing or at risk of homelessness the opportunity to improve their situation.

Street Sense and Big Issue are two of around 100 publications linked by an International Network of Street Papers. The INSP is our equivalent of NATO, with around 100 members around the world. This can offer insight into the biggest issues internationally, from the perspective of often overlooked communities. It is currently those on the margins who are Trump’s latest targets. 

Trump decided to refocus his aim on homelessness after spotting a small encampment of tents along the I-66 on 10 August (as he was on the way to go golfing). He shared pictures he snapped and the order for them to IMMEDIATELY move or be removed on his social media platform.

By the next day he’d taken control of the city’s police and deployed the National Guard. The justification was “rising violence in the capital”, despite recent stats showing it has fallen over the last two years. People experiencing homelessness were lumped in as part of a crime problem.

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When the crackdown on encampments began, Street Sense was there to witness, diligently questioning officials and talking to residents who were promised – or threatened – to be taken to shelters. One evictee, Meghann Abraham, was camped on Washington Circle, halfway along Pennsylvania Avenue, at the far end of which sits the White House. She said in her experience, homeless shelters either feel like “jail” or “an insane asylum”.

The move is part of a wider executive order, ‘Ending Crime and Disorder on America’s Streets’. Announced in July, it outlines ending support for Housing First schemes – widely considered the most productive way to tackle the big issue – bans camps and encourages states to criminalise homelessness.

Vulnerable communities in the US are being attacked on several fronts. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has detained tens of thousands of undocumented migrants across the country. The numbers are so vast that the individual stories are lost.

From Washington DC to Washington State: This month, two vendors of Seattle-based street paper Real Change were detained by ICE. According to Krystal Marx, executive director of Real Change, it was “a calculated act of cruelty and intimidation”.

Sabra Boyd, the editor of Real Change, was in Edinburgh at the Fringe at the time. She came to visit our office one day, in between performing her show Baby CEO – ‘a true-crime comedy about human trafficking’. Born on the set of the Coen Brothers’ Raising Arizona, Boyd’s life only got more eventful from there.

Her position at Real Change marks a full-circle moment – when she was a homeless teenager the paper became a significant part of her life. She remembers the support vendors gave her when she needed it, and that community spirit endures, especially when it is tested.

The two detained vendors are being held at the Tacoma Detention Center. Real Change has not been able to reach them and their details can’t yet be shared. But Boyd did have heartening news. In the aftermath, thousands of dollars were raised by the vendors’ customers to pay legal fees.

The community rallied, both locally and internationally. When one vendor of a street paper is targeted, it feels like all vendors have been, and strengthens the resolve to uphold the safety and dignity of those trying to make a better life for themselves.

Steven MacKenzie is deputy editor of Big Issue.

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