‘This Is the Liberal Establishment’: As Homelessness Rises in Major Cities, Trump Speaks Out
By Fred Lucas
President Donald Trump says he is working on a plan to address a spike in homelessness in the United States, particularly in several California cities.
During a Fox News Channel interview that aired Monday night, host Tucker Carlson asked the president about homelessness in major urban centers.
“It’s disgraceful. I’m going to [propose something], maybe, and I’m looking at it very seriously,” Trump told Carlson on “Tucker Carlson Tonight.” “We’re doing some other things that you probably noticed.”
. . . There shouldn’t be a real federal government role for addressing homelessness, contends Kerry Jackson, a fellow with the Pacific Research Institute’s Center for California Reform.
“I don’t see a federal role at all regarding the homelessness issue, any more than I see a federal role for education and many other places where Washington has become involved,” Jackson told The Daily Signal. “It is a state and local issue, and they already have incentives to do the right thing.”
“If they don’t do the right things, they will lose businesses and they will lose residents, and they will have public health problems that fester,” he said in an email. “Those should … motivate them enough to come up with effective policies.”
. . . In more updated numbers, spanning 2017 to 2019, The Wall Street Journal reported a 17% increase in homeless residents of San Francisco.
The city faces problems of “aggressive panhandling and human waste,” the Pacific Research Institute’s Jackson said.
An institute issue brief on San Francisco homelessness called for the city to better engage law enforcement, reform city housing policy to expedite housing permits and reform zoning laws, and require more accountability over how taxpayer dollars are spent on homelessness.
