Response to July 24, 2025 Executive Order on Homelessness

At Rise Up Residential, we believe every person deserves dignity, autonomy, and a safe, stable place to call home. We are deeply concerned by the framing and substance of President Trump’s recent Executive Order on homelessness, which prioritizes punitive enforcement, involuntary commitment, and the criminalization of poverty over evidence-based housing and health solutions.

While we agree that the status quo is unacceptable and that serious investment in mental health and addiction treatment is urgently needed, we firmly reject the idea that homelessness can be solved through incarceration, forced institutionalization, or the abandonment of housing-first principles. These approaches have historically failed—wasting public dollars and further traumatizing already vulnerable people. 

• President Trump’s order ignores economic homelessness. The majority of people experiencing homelessness today are not suffering from severe mental illness or addiction—but from an economic system that has priced them out of housing. These are working families, seniors on fixed incomes, young adults aging out of care, and others whose incomes simply do not keep pace with California’s skyrocketing rent. Any response that overlooks this reality is misguided and destined to fail.
• Homelessness is a housing problem. The single greatest predictor of homelessness is the lack of deeply affordable homes. In San Diego and across California, housing costs far exceed incomes for low-wage workers, and too many are just one emergency away from losing their housing.
• We believe in Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Food, water, and shelter are the most basic human necessities—prerequisites to any recovery, employment, or participation in society. As the wealthiest nation on earth, the United States must find a way to ensure that its citizens have their most essential needs met. Until we prioritize the fundamentals of survival—safe shelter, nourishment, and community—we cannot expect people to address higher-level needs like recovery or self-sufficiency.
• Housing First saves lives and dollars. Proven over decades, Housing First models—when paired with supportive services—lead to long-term housing stability, reductions in emergency service use, and improved health outcomes. Criminalizing unsheltered people for using drugs or having mental illness does not solve root causes—it perpetuates cycles of displacement and incarceration.
• Involuntary commitment is not treatment. We reject the idea that mental health recovery or substance use treatment can be forced. Recovery is most successful when it is person-centered, voluntary, and community-based. This order risks reviving outdated institutional models that harm rather than heal.
• Real safety comes from community. True public safety comes not from policing poverty but from investing in people—through affordable housing, tenant protections, community-based health care, and pathways to employment and stability.
• We need to fund a new housing model. Existing housing programs were not designed to solve economic homelessness at scale. We need to invest in new lower cost development approaches that create permanently affordable, self-sustaining housing using one-time public investments. This model ensures long-term affordability without ongoing subsidies and provides the housing infrastructure required for both prevention and recovery.

We urge federal and state leaders to reject the criminalization of homelessness and instead invest in housing, services, and human dignity. At Rise Up Residential, we are pioneering small-scale, infill housing solutions rooted in community, compassion, and cost-efficiency. We believe in housing with people, not to people—and we know a better way is possible.

We welcome any opportunity to partner with public agencies, philanthropy, and community members who share our vision of a California where everyone has a safe place to call home.

https://riseupresidential.org/