• Admin
• Jan 20, 2025
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Rising Homelessness: Could Trump’s Second Term Worsen the Crisis?

When Rosie Garrison evacuated the Sunswept Fire in Studio City, California, earlier this month, she left behind a plastic toy cottage she had been using as shelter along the Los Angeles River. Although her cottage survived, Garrison remains one of the approximately 75,000 unhoused individuals in Los Angeles, a number that may grow due to the wildfire's destruction.

“A week ago, we had more housing than ever in Los Angeles, and yet we were still outside,” Garrison explained in a phone interview, coughing due to a sore throat caused by dust and ash. “If we rebuild, how will we not still end up outside?”

Across the U.S., unhoused residents like Garrison and local leaders are questioning how more people will secure housing over the next four years as Donald Trump re-enters the White House. Housing experts are anxious about potential rollbacks to federal homelessness strategies, said Philip Mangano, former executive director of the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness, under President George W. Bush. “The fear, of course, is that there will be an undoing of what works,” Mangano told USA TODAY.

When Trump first took office in January 2017, an estimated 550,000 people were homeless nationwide, according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). This past year, HUD reported a 40% increase to 770,000 unhoused individuals.

Why Do People Become Homeless?

The primary driver of homelessness is skyrocketing rents, said Ann Oliva, CEO of the National Alliance to End Homelessness. “We know more Americans than ever are paying over 50% of their income toward rent,” Oliva said. When residents in a neighborhood spend over 30% of their income on rent, homelessness rates tend to rise dramatically.

Shamus Roller, executive director of the National Housing Law Project, emphasized that the best way to reduce homelessness is to build more affordable housing. However, Trump has not indicated plans to advocate for such low-income housing initiatives during his second term, Roller added.

Concerns Over California’s Proposition 1

California’s new Proposition 1, which grants the state more authority to place individuals with mental illnesses into treatment facilities, is another area of concern for people like Garrison. She worries her boyfriend could become stuck in the system. The last meaningful help she felt she received was from the COVID-19 stimulus checks, which she said made a significant difference. “This might sound strange, and I don’t want to seem like a Trump supporter, but honestly, that stuff helped me,” Garrison, 34, admitted.

Addressing Homelessness Locally

Homelessness varies across communities, and local leaders are leveraging available resources to tackle the crisis. In Grants Pass, Oregon, a small mountain city that brought the legal fight over public sleeping bans to the Supreme Court, resources for the unhoused population have improved over the past seven years. Josh Balloch, who runs a health organization there, noted that creative approaches, such as using Medicaid to pay rent, can help. However, Balloch expressed concern that Trump could hinder these efforts by politicizing homelessness and cutting federal social safety net funding.