Basic Needs Coalition Letter: Trump's July 24 Executive Order
A Group of Cross-Sector Advocates for Housing and Supportive Services Denounces Executive Order on Homelessness, Reaffirms Commitment to Housing-Based Solutions and Community Empowerment
SAN DIEGO, CA – July 30, 2025 – We express profound disappointment and strong opposition to President Trump’s Executive Order, "Ending Crime and Disorder on America's Streets," issued last week by the White House. This order fundamentally mischaracterizes homelessness as a criminal issue rather than a complex societal challenge rooted in a severe lack of affordable housing, living wages, and accessible services.
The Executive Order's emphasis on criminalization, forced institutionalization, and the redirection of federal funding away from proven "Housing First" strategies is a dangerous step backward. Decades of research and on-the-ground experience demonstrate that punitive measures do not end homelessness; they merely displace individuals, exacerbate suffering, and create further barriers to stability. True solutions lie in providing safe, affordable housing and comprehensive, voluntary supportive services.
Our collective organizations are unwavering in our commitment to building the knowledge, capacity, and influence of people, organizations, and institutions dedicated to developing and preserving evidence-based solutions to our ongoing housing and homelessness crisis. We firmly believe that everyone deserves a safe, stable, and affordable place to call home, and that housing is the foundation for health, well-being, and community integration. These programs exemplify our belief that genuine progress comes from listening to and empowering the very individuals and communities we serve, rather than imposing top-down, punitive mandates.
The Executive Order's directives to prioritize grants for jurisdictions that enforce prohibitions on open illicit drug use, urban camping, and loitering, and to restrict funding for harm reduction, will only deepen the crisis in San Diego. These measures will increase the criminalization of poverty and mental health challenges, making it harder for our unhoused neighbors to access the support they need to transition out of homelessness.
We call upon our local, state, and federal elected officials to reject these harmful approaches and instead double down on investments in:
Expanded Affordable Housing: Accelerating the creation and preservation of diverse affordable housing options.
Comprehensive Supportive Services: Ensuring access to voluntary mental health, substance use disorder treatment, healthcare, and employment services that are integrated with housing.
"Housing First" Principles: Upholding and expanding the proven "Housing Fiirst" model, which prioritizes immediate housing without preconditions.
Community-Led Solutions: Supporting programs like HEAL and RUN that empower those with lived experience to shape policy.
Prevention and Diversion: Investing in strategies that prevent individuals and families from falling into homelessness in the first place.
This coalition stands ready to collaborate with all stakeholders committed to implementing humane, evidence-based solutions that lead to vulnerable populations' basic needs being met and to build a more equitable San Diego. We will continue to advocate vigorously for policies and resources that align with our values and effectively address the root causes of homelessness in our community.
"This executive order is not only misguided but potentially devastating for communities like San Diego that are working tirelessly to address homelessness with compassionate and effective strategies," said Stephen Russell, CEO and President of the San Diego Housing Federation. "Prioritizing enforcement and forced treatment over housing and voluntary support undermines the dignity of unhoused individuals and ignores the systemic causes of homelessness."
"This executive order directly undermines the foundational work of our Homeless-Experienced Advocacy and Leadership (HEAL) Network and Residents United Network (RUN) advocates. While it pushes for counterproductive measures, our members remain singularly focused on the decriminalization of homelessness and enacting lasting, systemic change. We're convinced that genuine solutions emerge from empowering individuals with lived experience—their expertise is not just critical, it's indispensable to tackling this crisis. Furthermore, we demand nothing less than rigorous, transparent housing data from all cities and counties. This crucial information is the only way to establish accountability and truly measure the actual outcomes of policies, including executive orders like this one. Every individual deserves a safe, stable, and affordable home," said Jaylene Sanchez, Advocacy Program Manager, San Diego Housing Federation.
"This executive order is yet another attack on the basic human rights of our least protected neighbors. The dehumanization of people experiencing houselessness, mental health crises, or substance use is unacceptable. Individuals experiencing these, at times, intersecting crises is indicative of our government's systemic failure to ensure autonomy, dignity, and justice for all of its people. With ignorance and cruelty, this order attempts to destroy the ability for the hard-won best practices to continue to appropriately serve our community. Criminalization and institutionalization are not the answers to our housing crisis, housing and humanity are." said Nicole Lillie, Executive Director, Our Time To Act.