By Debra J. Saunders / Creators.com
Former President Donald Trump “has called for the return of ‘mental institutions’” to get the homeless off the streets, Axios reported Tuesday.
Was Trump serious or just spitballing?
The Trump campaign did not respond when I asked for further clarification.
“I think he’s reacting like many Americans,” Brett Tolman, executive director of the criminal-justice reform group Right on Crime, told me.
The urban landscape is not improving. Fentanyl and other dangerous drugs are cheap and easily available. Progressive prosecutors often don’t charge what they call low-level crimes.
Michele Steeb, co-author of “Answers Behind the Red Door: Battling the Homeless Epidemic,” observed that the bygone approach of institutionalizing the homeless didn’t work. Steeb made it clear that she would not support a return to mass institutionalization. Even still, she noted, “In the old days, you have people coming into the system and leaving the system.” These days Steeb sees people entering homeless programs, but no one leaving.
The Biden administration has gone “all in” on Housing First, which the Department of Housing and Urban Development describes as “an approach to quickly and successfully connect individuals and families experiencing homelessness to permanent housing without preconditions and barriers to entry, such as sobriety, treatment or service participation requirements.”
In case you missed it, requiring dysfunctional addicts to be clean to qualify for subsidized housing is a “barrier.”
The pendulum has swung too far; from the bad old days when the mentally ill could be locked up for life to the bad new days when the hands of police officers and social workers are tied.
That is a dynamic Trump understands how to play. As he runs for the White House in 2024, Trump’s flirtation with “mental institutions” is likely to appeal to voters who think the government doesn’t work — and most certainly doesn’t work for them — anymore.
“The mental health issue is as bad as I’ve ever seen it,” Tolman told me. Trump’s call for “mental institutions” could spur a dialogue Americans sorely need. The focus should be on rehabilitation.
And the failure Americans have come to expect should not be tolerated.
Debra J. Saunders is a fellow at the Discovery Institute’s Chapman Center for Citizen Leadership. Contact her at dsaunders@discovery.org. Copyright 2023, Creators.com.
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