Former President Donald Trump, the front-runner in the 2024 Republican primary field, wants to make homelessness illegal and send violators away to camps for rehabilitation.
“Under my strategy, working with states, we will ban urban camping wherever possible. Violators of these bans will be arrested, but they will be given the option to accept treatment and services if they are willing to be rehabilitated. Many of them don’t want that, but we will give them the option,” Trump said in a Tuesday campaign ad.
Under his plan, the federal government will open tracts of “inexpensive land” for the construction of “tent cities.” There, Trump says in the ad, “the homeless can be relocated and their problems identified.”
Trump also calls for the restoration of the nation’s use of mental institutions for housing those homeless people with severe mental health concerns or the “dangerously deranged.”
“For those who are severely mentally ill and deeply disturbed, we will bring them back to mental institutions, where they belong, with the goal of reintegrating them back into society once they are well enough to manage,” he said.
This is not the first time the former commander-in-chief has called for the internment of the homeless as a means of solving a problem plaguing cities across the country.
In a speech given last July, a full six months before the launch of his 2024 campaign, Trump said opening “parcels” of land outside of major cities and moving the homeless there to live in tents and receive services was the only solution.
“Perhaps some people will not like hearing this,” he said then.
According to the 2022 Homeless Assessment Report produced by the Department of Housing and Urban Development, nationally there were more than half-a-million homeless people found on the street through a survey conducted during a solitary January night last year.
“Data shows that homelessness remains a national crisis,” HUD Secretary Marcia L. Fudge said in the report.
In a statement sent along with Tuesday’s ad, Trump’s campaign referenced both withdrawing U.S. support for Ukraine, where Russian President Vladimir Putin is engaging in an unlawful invasion of a democratic neighbor, and closing U.S. borders as the means of funding housing for homeless veterans.
Trump is currently the leading candidate in the Republican primary field, which also includes former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley and former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has not announced a presidential bid but is expected to do so and is widely seen as Trump’s closest competition.
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