One important aspect of this escalation in police action that has not received as much attention is determining where the unhoused people of Washington, D.C. are supposed to go. Around 5,000 unhoused people live in Washington, D.C., and moving them would be no small matter. “We will give you places to stay, but FAR from the capital,” Trump stated in the same Truth Social post. Although where those places are remains to be determined, as no concrete plan has been released by the administration.

A hint of a plan can be found in the ramping up of his reelection campaign in 2023. Trump released policy proposals that included banning “urban camping” and creating “tent cities” on inexpensive land where homeless people can live, where there would be doctors and social workers. Again, no plans on where such tent cities would be or how they would look have been released, but we should all be worried based on the Trump Administration’s track record for hastily produced detention centers. One only needs to look at Alligator Alcatraz, a site that is expensive, dangerous, and overtly cruel. It would be kinder to leave people unhoused in Washington, D.C. than to force them into torturous conditions in such camps.

There is a reason, however, why concrete and detailed plans on what to do with the unhoused population of Washington, D.C. have not been released: Trump doesn’t care about unhoused people. If he actually cared about long-term solutions, Trump would not have green-lit Elon Musk and DOGE’s dismantling of the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness earlier this year.

Good thing I’m the quiet type, keep to myself.