In late July 2025, the federal administration issued an executive order criminalizing street homelessness. Deborah Berkman, Director of NYLAG’s Shelter and Economic Stability Project, explains in Gothamist how this failed approach only further compounds harm and endangers public health and safety:
President Donald Trump wants cities and states to force homeless people with mental illness and addiction into treatment facilities. To make that happen, he signed an executive order this summer directing federal agencies to dramatically shift how they fund programs for homeless people.It’s a policy change that upends the approach New York has taken to housing homeless people for years: offering stable housing without requiring people to meet sobriety rules or agree to mental health treatment first.
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”If there’s less funding to support drug users, there will be more open drug use and open drug use is illegal and so there will be more arrests,” said Deborah Berkman, director of shelter and economic stability at the New York Legal Assistance Group, a legal services nonprofit.
Read the full story, originally published in Gothamist on September 2, 2025.
