Comment: Trump’s civil commitment order comes close to correct

Dallas Morning News Editorial Board

Given all of the news these days, relatively little notice was paid to a July 24 executive order from President Donald Trump titled “Ending Crime and Disorder on America’s Streets.”

As with many pronouncements from this administration, the rhetoric was over the top. But the underlying message deserves serious attention because it represents an effort to reshape the way our nation deals with people who are unable to care for themselves due to mental illness and addiction.

Anyone who has spent time in urban areas knows that cities have a serious problem with deeply troubled people living on the streets, on park benches and in encampments.

It is not now, nor has it ever been, humane to decide that society’s response should be to let people live in the torment of their illness or addiction because that’s their “choice.”

Trump’s executive order is an effort to make the process of civil commitment easier for people “who pose a risk to themselves or to the public or are living on the streets and cannot care for themselves.”

It calls on the attorney general and other members of the president’s Cabinet to prioritize federal grants to states and municipalities that enforce prohibitions on illicit drug use and encampments.

While many homeless advocates have found fault with this order, we believe the majority of Americans will support many elements of it. People have passed the point of exhaustion with permissive policies that too often make the well-being of the public at large a secondary concern at best.

That said, we think the order deserves two key critiques. First, there are precious few places to which people who are struggling can be committed. If police went out today and picked up all of the people who are a danger to themselves in Dallas, there would be no place to put them. Jails too often are the default mental health treatment centers in urban areas.

If the administration is serious, it will invest federal resources in the construction and staffing of mental health and addiction treatment centers around the country.

Second, the order goes too far in targeting “housing first” policies. While some programs do ignore people’s broader needs, many others, including programs in Dallas, braid housing with social services to get people out of crisis and into help.

The Trump administration is correct in recognizing that our nation’s approach to people suffering before our eyes has, in too many places, been wrong-headed. Making it easier for people to carry on their addictions isn’t humane. Turning a blind eye to encampments where crime and disease spread isn’t humane.

But absent the investment we need to actually help those who we would remove from such circumstances, real progress will remain out of reach.