Amber W. Harding, Executive Director
On August 10, 2025, President Trump posted on Truth Social that: “The Homeless have to move out, IMMEDIATELY… We will give you places to stay, but FAR from the Capital.” The next day, the President announced that he would be sending 800 National Guard members to D.C., deploying federal law enforcement officers, and taking over D.C.’s police force– all with instructions to clear all the homeless people off of D.C. streets and to end D.C.’s alleged violent crime problem. Thus began the federal police occupation of the nation’s capital that continues to this day, one year later. No “places to stay” were ever provided.
In one year, those 800 National Guard members have grown to 4,662 troops deployed in the nation’s capital. That equates to about one National Guard member for every 150 D.C. residents. We have no data on how many federal officers are on the streets of D.C. We know that we have seen officers patrolling from the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI), National Park Service (NPS), Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), U.S. Postal Service, Bureau of Prisons, and many more. To our knowledge, none of these National Guard troops or federal law enforcement officers have been trained on how to work with people who are unhoused in D.C. or what resources are available for shelter, housing, or services.
In this last year, D.C. residents who are Black, brown, immigrants (both undocumented and documented), unhoused, and/or protesting the occupation have been targeted for harassment, arrest, displacement, and/or property destruction. Sometimes federal officers have acted alone, but sometimes they have acted cooperatively with local police or agency staff, including when Bowser Administration officials have cleared encampments at the behest of the Trump Administration. In fact, since the Trump Administration began targeting D.C. homeless people sleeping outside, the Bowser Administration has not only been complicit in harming unhoused residents, it has reduced the amount of notice it provides to people before clearing encampments, often not providing any notice at all, and increased the number of clearings by 355%.
D.C. emergency shelters are full. D.C. rental housing is increasingly unaffordable. The cost of housing is rising far faster than wages. Both federal and local investments in housing that ends homelessness have dwindled over the past few years. More people become homeless every year in D.C. than are assisted with affordable housing. The solution to homelessness has always been and always will be housing, not criminalization: a recent study on whether criminalization was effective at reducing the numbers of people sleeping outside found “a quick dip in visible homelessness… followed by a surge in homelessness that exceeded prior levels.” Criminalization is only effective at increasing trauma and harm, implicitly furthering the fallacy that people who cannot afford housing are somehow less deserving of empathy, dignity, or assistance. We reject both the underlying ideology and the actions of using government power and authority to harm rather than help people experiencing homelessness.
We know the federal government recognizes the importance of stable affordable housing for some people, just not D.C. residents who are unhoused. There is no better illustration of that hypocrisy than the recent revelation that the federal government had signed a contract to pay $292 million for one year of rent for 2000 apartments for National Guard members deployed in D.C. That’s $12,166/month/unit. The federal government sets the fair market rent for a two-bedroom apartment in D.C. at $2,246 per month. The same government that sets that rate as “fair” and reasonable just signed a contract to pay nearly six times that rate for National Guard members, people who many D.C. residents feel are only present to remind D.C. residents of the willingness of the federal government to use force to oppress them. If the Trump Administration truly wanted to clear the D.C. streets, shelters, and transitional housing programs of all people experiencing homelessness, about 4500 households on any given day, they could send the National Guard troops home, provide every single unhoused person with housing at market rate and still save $157 million what is being paid for National Guard housing, not to mention food, wages, and other costs.
The federal occupation of D.C. continues, unchecked by Congress. The federal government is spending about one billion dollars per year just on National Guard deployment in D.C., tax dollars that D.C. residents pay without corresponding representation, to intimidate, harass, and harm its own people. There is no upside, no legitimate government interest. A study recently found that the National Guard presence has had no impact on violent crime in D.C. This federal abuse of power is only possible because D.C. has been unjustly deprived of statehood and true representative democracy. No state, even those similarly targeted for federal enforcement, has been occupied to the extent we have. While D.C. is fighting the presence of the National Guard, we would have far greater tools for resisting militarization if D.C. was a state.
The Legal Clinic continues to fight back with every tool we have, as do many D.C. residents and organizations. The Legal Clinic has provided legal rights information, representation, or tangible support to hundreds of unsheltered D.C. residents over the last year. We hired a civil rights attorney last fall and stood up a brand-new Legal Monitor Program to help our clients enforce their constitutional rights. We trained and onboarded Legal Monitors to observe and document interactions with law enforcement. Our team has spoken to far too many unhoused persons about their experiences with harassment, property destruction, and displacement. We have advocated against federal laws to increase criminal penalties for sleeping in a car or outside in D.C. We, along with other advocates for ending homelessness humanely, have continued our advocacy for low-barrier emergency shelter and increased affordable housing resources. We have worked hand-in-hand with people and organizations that share our values to protect the rights and lives of those D.C. residents unfairly targeted for detention and incarceration.
We are heartened by the thousands of D.C. residents who continue to organize and resist the federal government’s deprivation of our right to self-govern and the harm it is causing to our people and our community. We welcome anyone who would like to support the rights of people experiencing homelessness to learn more about our work here, volunteer as a legal monitor, or donate to help us continue this critical work on behalf of unhoused D.C. residents.