Trump is ‘turning around the Titanic’ on homelessness, Utah rep says

President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Thursday overhauling the federal government’s approach to homeless policy in favor of a strategy more in line with the one being pursued in Utah.

The presidential directive, titled “Ending Crime and Disorder on America’s Streets,” instructs executive agencies to encourage the use of civil commitment by states to move some homeless individuals into long-term institutional care.

Following more than a decade of “housing first” requirements from Washington, D.C., Trump’s order makes federal grants conditional on prohibiting urban camping, abandoning “harm reduction” tactics and meeting higher standards of accountability.

The order garnered praise from Utah Gov. Spencer Cox, who has pushed hard to reset the state’s homeless services amid record levels of chronic homelessness. But it also concerned some service providers who are skeptical that the law enforcement emphasis will be accompanied by additional funding.

“I’m grateful to the White House for making this important change,” Cox told the Deseret News in a statement. “For too long, the federal government pushed a one-size-fits-all approach that left people on the streets and tied our hands when we tried to do better.”

“Utah has always believed that real compassion means getting people the help they need, especially those struggling with addiction or serious mental illness. This new executive order reflects the commonsense approach we’ve been calling for: treatment, accountability, and support — not just housing with no strings attached. It’s good to see Washington finally moving in the right direction.”

What will the order do?

The Trump administration’s new approach to homelessness will focus on “protecting public safety” as the number of individuals experiencing homelessness reaches record highs, with nearly 771,500 people experiencing homelessness on one night in 2024, include more than 274,200 who were unsheltered.

Recognizing that a significant portion of homeless individuals use hard drugs or suffer from serious mental illness, Trump’s order instructs the U.S. Attorney General and secretary of Health and Human Services to remove federal obstacles to civil commitment.

Civil commitment is a legal process that allows officials to court-order an individual into mental health treatment or confinement if they pose a risk to themselves or others because of severe mental illness or substance use disorder.

Under Trump’s order, relevant agencies will be tasked with helping state and local governments with guidance on how to adopt “maximally flexible civil commitment” and other policies to forcibly remove those who present a threat to public safety.

“Shifting homeless individuals into long-term institutional settings for humane treatment through the appropriate use of civil commitment will restore public order,” the executive action says.

The White House instructed departments to prioritize grant money for states and municipalities that enforce prohibitions on illicit drug use and urban camping; that require outpatient treatment or civil commitment for high-risk individuals; and that track sex offenders who are homeless.

Secretaries of Health and Human Services and Housing and Urban Development are also now authorized to “increase accountability” for homeless service providers by halting funds to supervised drug consumption programs and ending support for “housing first” initiatives that don’t promote recovery.

A ‘sea change’

According to the lawmaker behind Utah’s recent homelessness reforms, Thursday’s executive order represents a “sea change.”

“This executive order is like turning around the Titanic,” Rep. Tyler Clancy, R-Provo, told the Deseret News, “We’re going to prioritize providers and states and cities who take these innovative approaches, and recognize this is a human issue, not only a housing issue.”

Over the past few legislative sessions, Clancy has spearheaded the governor’s homelessness initiative by extending involuntary commitment times, prohibiting syringe exchange programs in certain areas and enhancing criminal penalties for drug possession in and around homeless shelters.

These pieces of legislation — which also connected overdose survivors to county resources, expanded the state’s homelessness database and codified a “pathway to thriving” model — all passed the Utah Legislature unanimously.

A separate resolution pressuring federal agencies to rescind housing-first restrictions on homelessness funding, which passed both chambers with all but two votes, is remarkably similar to the president’s new initiative, Clancy noted.

“This isn’t criminalizing homelessness,” Clancy said. “This is saying, ‘You need help, and as a society, we’re not going to leave you out there to suffer. We’re going to bring you inside and get you the best health care possible to help you heal.’”

This approach requires a commitment to long-term treatment and prevention because mental illness and drug addiction drive homelessness just as much as economic factors, according to Clancy, who served as the executive director of Solutions Utah, a homeless policy advocacy group, before working as a detective at the Provo Police Department.

Utah has already “led the way” in reorienting policy conversations toward “compassion through accountability,” and now the rest of the country “will start moving in that same direction,” according to Devon Kurtz, the public safety policy director at the Texas-based Cicero Institute.

“The changes announced by the White House amount to a comprehensive restructuring of the national approach to homelessness,” Kurtz told the Deseret News. “The executive order makes one thing abundantly clear: the era of recklessly inactive homelessness policy is over.”

Concerns about cash

But recent actions from the Republican-controlled executive and legislative branches in Washington do not inspire confidence that money will be provided to create the wrap-around services needed to accompany a law enforcement crackdown, said Rep. Grant Miller, D-Salt Lake City.

Miller, a public defender who has proposed a “homeless Bill of Rights,” said he welcomes the federal government shaking up its approach to homelessness, but the order’s promise to invest in mental health treatment comes after historic cuts to Medicaid included in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.

“Medicaid is the No. 1 funding mechanism for us to get people into health care facilities,” Miller said. “Without that funding that they just slashed ... I don’t know that they saw the long-term connection.”

Having seen the ineffectiveness of policies like civil commitment when those experiencing homelessness have nowhere to go, Miller said his greatest worry is that policies will lead to “punishing poverty” instead of “stabilization” through “health care models.”

On Wednesday, Cox, speaking at the 140th anniversary of the Utah State Hospital, drew attention to the fact that the number of beds for committed patients had decreased from 1,250 to around 350 since the 1950s, even as the population increased from 700,000 to 3.5 million.

Over the past two years, Clancy has initiated conversations about selling the old Utah State Hospital, and drastically expanding it into a system that spread across the Wasatch Front, but the issue has yet to gain traction.

Michelle Flynn, the executive director of The Road Home, one of the largest networks of homeless shelters in the state, said Trump’s order highlighted places where Utah has already made advances, but it failed to address a core issue: housing.

“The characterization of ‘housing first’ being ‘housing only’ is not correct,” Flynn told the Deseret News. “‘Housing first’ absolutely includes an intense amount of support services.”

Flynn’s worry is that a new restriction on funding “housing first” initiatives could stop important funding for rental assistance programs that are essential for getting people off the streets so they can have their health issues addressed.

The problem isn’t necessarily a lack of sobriety requirements for housing, it’s an unmanageable waiting list for mental health and substance abuse programs that leaves vulnerable individuals without the help they need, according to Flynn.

“The challenge is, where do we help people to go?” Flynn said.

Correction: A previous version of the story had the incorrect number of beds for civilly committed patients at Utah State Hospital. The number is close to 350.