Trump order will make things worse on homelessness

Published 1:30 am Sunday, August 3, 2025

Trump’s executive order on homelessness is a slap in the face to all those who have struggled to make progress with this and related issues such as mental illness and drug addiction since the Communjty Mental Health Act, signed by JFK in 1963.

In Snohomish County, it took a long time to establish Fern Lodge, the civil commitment facility to treat mental illness, just opened this summer. People who needed this in the past have gone without, meaning mostly jails and prisons instead of treatment. Now, barely sufficient treatment facilities are supposed to house people not committed under court order for acute mental health crisis care for a limited term.

Plus, Trump’s order further reduces homeless people from hard won, already insufficient housing assistance.

In one “swell foop” this messes up serious attempts to deal with both mental illness and homelessness.

Are we to take America back to a 19th or maybe 18th century where people were just supposed to die out in the bushes or in the back alleys of pitiless big city poverty? We are a complex society of 340 million people with a fantastic capacity to accomplish miracles if we work on problem solving instead of name calling like kids on a playground or politicians who won’t think for ten seconds beyond quaint stereotypes.

A big thank you to all our Washington state public officials and leaders who are trying to steer in the right direction despite the tsunami of cluelessness from the other Washington.

Stuart Heady

Camano Island