Restoring Order Without Losing Our Principles

Yesterday, President Trump signed the Executive Order Ending Crime and Disorder on America’s Streets, aimed at confronting the growing homelessness crisis and the lawlessness that has followed in its wake. Finally.

For too long, our cities have tolerated encampments in parks, needles on sidewalks, open drug use in front of schools, and the slow decay of once-thriving communities. What used to be limited to places like San Francisco and Portland is now creeping into the heartland. I’ve personally witnessed this while living in states like North Carolina and Oklahoma…where even rural areas are now wrestling with homeless encampments and rising crime.

The Executive Order signals a long-overdue shift: public safety matters again. Property rights matter again. Civil order matters again.

But let’s be clear…enforcing those values doesn’t mean throwing people into asylums or building a new bureaucratic complex of federally run rehab camps. That’s where many on both the Left and Right get it wrong.

Summary of the Executive Order

Trump’s Executive Order focuses on:

• Involuntary commitment for homeless individuals with severe mental illness or addiction who pose a danger to themselves or others.

• Redirecting federal funds away from “harm reduction” and “housing first” models that ignore addiction and disorder, and toward treatment and accountability.

• Incentivizing cities to enforce bans on public camping, open drug use, and squatting through federal grant criteria.

• Restoring federal law enforcement tools to clear public spaces, dismantle encampments, and track homeless sex offenders.

It’s not perfect…but it moves the conversation in the right direction.

Where I Stand

Homelessness is not an identity. It’s a condition…often caused by poor choices, addiction, or untreated mental illness. It should not be romanticized, enabled, or subsidized. And it should never be allowed to trample the rights of law-abiding citizens and businesses.

Cities that ignore this problem…often under the banner of “compassion”…are decaying before our eyes. Crime goes up. Tourism goes down. Property values collapse. And families flee.

That said, we must not repeat the mistakes of the past, where government institutions locked people away without oversight or consent. We must strike a balance: restore law and order without handing more unchecked power to the state.

Actionable Policy Solutions

Federal Government

1. End federal subsidies that encourage dependency.
   Stop funding programs that enable street living, open drug use, and permanent encampments. Require states to show measurable reductions in vagrancy, crime, and overdose deaths to receive housing or urban development funds.

2. Block-grant mental health and housing funds to states.
   Let states innovate. Stop federal micromanagement and allow local governments to tailor solutions based on community needs and available resources.

3. Enforce existing laws around drug distribution, vagrancy, and public endangerment.
   The federal government should prioritize prosecuting organized fentanyl rings and criminal cartels, not subsidizing needle exchanges in public parks.

4. Protect civil liberties in all involuntary commitment actions.
   Require strict due process, judicial oversight, and regular review for any forced treatment to avoid abuse of power.

State & Local Governments

1. Ban public camping and enforce it…decisively.
   Cities have a right (and a duty) to clear encampments from public parks, sidewalks, and transit hubs. No more tolerance zones. No more “compassionate neglect.”

2. Prioritize sobriety-based shelters and transitional housing.
   If government housing exists at all, it should come with expectations: no drugs, no violence, and no permanent handouts. Sobriety and self-responsibility are the baseline.

3. Encourage private-sector and faith-based partnerships.
   Churches, nonprofits, and charities are more effective and more accountable than bloated government agencies. Let them lead in providing temporary shelter, work programs, and counseling.

4. Decriminalize mutual aid, not chaos.
   Allow citizens to help one another voluntarily…housing assistance, mentorship, job training…without burdensome licensing or regulation. But crack down on behaviors that endanger public health and safety.

5. Implement local civil commitment boards with strict limits.
   For the most severe cases, local jurisdictions can create narrowly tailored civil commitment procedures…always with legal representation and defined exit pathways.

Final Thoughts

This Executive Order doesn't solve the homelessness crisis…but it finally treats it as the public safety issue it is. It challenges the destructive fantasy that people are better off on the streets than in shelters. And it affirms a truth we’ve lost sight of: compassion and accountability are not opposites. They go hand in hand.

I don’t believe government is the answer to every problem. But I do believe government has a role in protecting public spaces, enforcing the rule of law, and defending the rights of taxpayers and families.

We can’t allow America’s streets to become lawless zones of filth, violence, and despair.
We also can’t allow government overreach to trample due process or liberty in the name of public order.

The balance is hard…but necessary. Because without safety, there is no freedom.
And without responsibility, there is no recovery.