As President Donald Trump tries to radically reduce the presence of homeless people on the streets of the District of Columbia, Democrats are grappling with how to respond given their party’s rightward shift on the issue.
One of the highest-profile Democrats who has pushed his party in this direction is Gov. Gavin Newsom, who earlier this year issued a model ordinance that municipalities in California can adopt to ban homeless encampments on public property. Newsom’s agenda has drawn some comparison from housing advocates to Trump’s promise to remove homeless encampments and displace people living on the District’s streets.
“In essence, the core of these efforts are exactly the same,” Jennifer Friedenbach, executive director of the Coalition on Homelessness, San Francisco, told NOTUS.
“Our city officials and our governor are stigmatizing and criminalizing unhoused people and drug users for their own political gain,” Friedenbach said. “So now, when Trump comes out with this stuff, it puts them in kind of an interesting position. I hope they speak out against it and show that they’re realizing that their actions are quite Trumpy.”
It is still unclear how the Trump administration’s policies will look in practice. But advocacy groups for homeless people are concerned that Trump’s administration might adopt inhumane tactics, and Newsom might be in an awkward position to oppose those policies.
“Newsom’s approach, like Trump’s approach, will actually make homelessness worse. It displaces people from their communities, it destroys trust and it wastes resources that can and should be used for housing and support,” Jesse Rabinowitz, a spokesperson for the National Homelessness Law Center, told NOTUS. “We know that housing is the solution to homelessness, not detention camps.”
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters Tuesday that federal law enforcement would support the Metropolitan Police Department in enforcing current laws on homelessness in the District, which could result in fines of up to $500 and up to 90 days of jail time.
“Homeless individuals will be given the option to leave their encampment, to be taken to a homeless shelter, to be offered addiction or mental health services — and if they refuse, they will be susceptible to fines or to jail time,” Leavitt added.
Trump’s approach has attracted opposition from California Democrats. Rep. Nanette Barragán, who chairs the Congressional Caucus on Homelessness, called his actions “a cruel, short-sighted stunt that will not solve homelessness.”
“You can’t claim to tackle homelessness while dismantling programs that keep people housed. We need evidence-based, compassionate solutions that address the root causes of homelessness—not heavy-handed crackdowns designed for political theater,” Barragán added.
Newsom, who is considered a potential 2028 presidential candidate, has also harshly criticized Trump’s efforts to get involved in D.C. matters, comparing him to dictators and saying Trump might consider “militarizing any city he wants in America.” Newsom is currently in a legal battle with Trump over the president’s decision to deploy National Guard troops to Los Angeles earlier this year.
Newsom’s office disputed similarities between his agenda on homelessness and Trump’s.
“Donald Trump is using federalized law enforcement as his private police force to arbitrarily rouse homeless people without providing any support or services. This will not only create fear and infringe on people’s rights but is unlikely to be successful as he will simply move people from place to place, creating more challenges for the District and surrounding communities,” Tara Gallegos, a spokesperson for Newsom’s office, wrote in a statement to NOTUS.
Newsom’s office argued that the governor’s prioritization of “addressing” homeless encampments was just one piece of a broader strategy of addressing housing issues in his state.
His team wasn’t alone in seeing daylight between Trump’s efforts and Newsom’s.
Advocates like Edie Irons, a spokesperson for All Home California, told NOTUS the organization would not equate what Trump is doing with Newsom’s approach in California.
“While we might have some concerns about Newsom’s approach, Trump’s actions are on a whole other level,” Irons said. “[Newsom is] not usurping local authority. Over the last several years, his administration has funded homelessness solutions more than any other previous state administration, and his administration is providing guidance for locals.”
California has a significant homeless population. About 24% of the homeless population in the U.S. is in the state, according to the Public Policy Institute of California. And while the state has spent record amounts of resources to address homelessness, state authorities have struggled to track the results of these investments.
The state’s handling of homelessness has long been the target of right-wing criticism. For years, Trump has attacked major cities in California for tolerating people living in tents and temporary shelters on the streets. For the president, this is proof of the shortcomings of Democratic leadership.
In 2024, as California’s homelessness crisis drew criticism from Republicans in the lead up to the presidential election, Newsom started pushing for stricter policies on this issue. Last July he urged state agencies to “urgently address” homeless encampments across the state. He also supported a Supreme Court decision allowing cities to prosecute people for sleeping on the streets.
Newsom’s push to get California municipalities to target homelessness encampments coincided with a drop in homelessness in some major metropolitan areas. But it also attracted criticisms from advocates in the state for failing to address the issue humanely.
“These are similar vehicles to solve a problem or try to solve the problem, and most of it is just about optics, to make it look good, and who cares what the outcome is?” Todd Langton, executive director of Agape Silicon Valley, a homelessness-assistance nonprofit, told NOTUS.
“[Trump’s actions are] similar to what Newsom is doing, as far as not having thought about where people are going to go. So, unhoused people here, they abate their encampments and they go three or four miles away, and that’s the sweep,” Langton said. “But then they come right back to where they were. It’s kind of a whack-a-mole program.”
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This NOTUS story was produced in partnership with San José Spotlight and with NewsWell, home of Times of San Diego, Santa Barbara News-Press and Stocktonia.