Washington, D.C.— On Sunday, President Donald Trump made a public promise on Truth Social to get rid of all the homeless people in Washington, D.C., and put criminals in jail. Trump wrote, “The homeless have to move out right now.” “We will give you places to stay, but they will be very far from the capital.” The criminals don’t have to go. “We’re going to put you in jail, where you belong.”
This news comes even though the mayor of Washington, D.C., says that crime is not on the rise right now. It has been claimed that the government is getting ready to send hundreds of National Guard troops to the city, just as it happened in Los Angeles. In other states, the governor has to approve the deployment of the National Guard. But in Washington, D.C., the U.S. President can do this directly. People are worried that Trump might be thinking about making the capital of the United States a federal city.
Facts and figures on homelessness in Washington, D.C.
The Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments (COG) did the 25th annual Point-In-Time (PIT) Count in January 2025. It found that there were 5,138 people who were homeless in the District of Columbia on a single night. This amount is lower than the 5,616 persons counted in 2024. The Community Partnership for the Prevention of Homelessness (CPPH) said that 3,782 of the people were single.
The number of homeless people in the city went up in 2022 and 2023, while the PIT count for 2024 indicated a drop. Housing advocates, on the other hand, are worried that the real number of homeless people is larger than what has been reported. They are also worried that the planned FY 2026 budget does not include enough money for homeless programs, which might put any progress the city has made at risk.
Fears about Federalization
After an incident on August 3 in which a staff member from the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), Edward Coristine, was attacked while trying to steal a car, Trump’s effort to make D.C. part of the federal government has gained steam. After the event, Elon Musk, a Trump supporter and the head of DOGE, publicly urged for D.C. to be made a federal city. Legal experts have said that this would be “tricky” because of the legal issues that would come up.