Donald Trump Knows How to End Homelessness

Donald Trump has long understood that he can leverage homelessness to motivate people. In the early 1980s, the developer was desperate to get tenants out of a building he owned in Manhattan so that he could tear it down and build a new one. The tenants were not obliging, so Trump tried a series of moves to force them to vacate—including offering to house homeless New Yorkers in the building, hoping revulsion would scare the tenants out.

Now, as president, Trump is once again turning to the fear of the homeless as a tool. The administration has begun threatening some sort of major action on homelessness, likely in California. It’s not clear what actions the administration might pursue, nor how federal authority would interact with local government. One reported idea is from the White House Council of Economic Advisers on Monday on the use of policing, apparently a gesture at the idea of rounding homeless people up.