NPR AUDIO – USA USA USA –
Nov. 12, 2024 – In a short video on his campaign website, Trump says cities in the U.S. have been surrendered to people who are unhoused, drug addicted and, quote, “dangerously deranged.” To the American public, he makes this promise. “We will use every tool, lever and authority to get the homeless off our streets.” “urban camping will be banned,” he says, “violators arrested.”
TRUMP 45TH US PRES/US PRES-ELECT: We will then open up large parcels of inexpensive land, bring in doctors, psychiatrists, social workers and drug rehab specialists and create tent cities where the homeless can be relocated and their problems identified.
RIDDLE: Both of these solutions have already been tried and failed, according to some experts.
KEITH HUMPHREYS: Independent of whether you think it’s a good idea, I just don’t see that happening.
RIDDLE: Keith Humphreys studies addiction medicine at Stanford University. He points out that the federal government has never been in the business of running these kinds of hospitals.
HUMPHREYS: Mental hospitals we almost entirely state-created institutions, state-funded, and states closed them.
