D.C. Homeless Left Scrambling For Shelter After Police Clear Encampments

On Friday of last week, police finished clearing out multiple homeless encampments in Washington, D.C. They had started removing homeless encampments on Thursday under instructions by President Donald Trump to keep Washington spotless and beautiful.

This clearing involved the removal of three large homeless encampments. Police officers were reported to toss tents, sleeping bags, clothes, and other such items into dumpsters. Apparently, some such clearings were done to individuals who have been allowed by the city health department to stay for several more days. These acts were scattered around the city rather than centered in one area. More research needs to be done to determine how many of the nine hundred homeless residents have been affected by this.

The decision to eliminate homeless encampments was met with outrage by a significant portion of the public, with a “modest crowd [gathering] outside the Metropolitan Police Department headquarters at Judiciary Square. They carried signs reading: “We do not consent” and “Resist!”‘(Walker, The New York Times page 3). Many homeless residents are also being affected, with one such resident, Temitope Tysijenlusi, angrily remarking in an interview by the National Public Radio, “you’re making people’s mental health worse…I have anxiety problems. I’m saying – I have panic attacks, so – like, I don’t know what to do. I just got to figure it out.” In a different article by the New York Times, homeless David Brown questioned despairingly, “Why is he doing this, for no reason?”

Many of the homeless residents affected by this are now on the move, riding the subways back and forth and finding new spots on the streets. Others, helped by nonprofit organizations, have moved into temporary hotel rooms and homeless shelters. Most homeless, however, have decided to sleep in whatever place they can. The New York Times states, “David Beatty, who was removed from an encampment between the Kennedy Center and the U.S. Institute for Peace…spent the first night after being cleared out behind bushes near the Foggy Bottom subway station. But without his tent or foam mat, he was getting little sleep.”