National Homelessness Law Center: The annual Homeless Persons’ Memorial Day is this weekend. This year, like every year, people will gather across the country to mourn those who died without a safe place to call home. In a country as wealthy and as powerful as ours, it is shameful that anybody lives or dies without the dignity of a home. Every death of a homeless person is a preventable policy failure. We can and must do better.  

This year’s memorial days feel especially charged. The Trump administration has made no secret of its desire to ticket, arrest, and round up homeless people. We’ve already seen massive cuts to vital healthcare programs, decreases in food assistance, and draconian proposals to slash funding for housing. Utah’s Governor found $45 million to build a massive, remote, homeless detention camp. Let us be clear: these policy choices will make more people homeless, hungry, and sick. And they mean that even more people will die.  

As we have said before, these attacks on homeless people are not new. But now, they are also coming from the highest levels of government. Donald Trump has used his power not to help lower the cost of rent or increase access to healthcare. Rather, he has used his power to attack, bully, and scapegoat people who have no choice but to live outside.  

Over the past year, there has been a marked increase in words, policies, and actions that attack – and even kill – our homeless neighbors.  

Words, such as when a Fox News host called for the killing of homeless people on live TV. Words from politicians who demonize homeless people instead of doing their jobs and ensuring that everybody has a safe place to live. And words from community members who blame homelessness on people who can’t afford the rent, instead of our broken housing system.   

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