Street-Level Truth: A Cop’s Perspective on America’s Homeless Crisis

On July 24, 2025, President Trump signed an Executive Order (EO) titled Ending Crime and Disorder on America’s Streets. It directs US Attorney General Pam Bondi to work with the secretaries of Health and Human Services, Housing and Urban Development, and Transportation, to prioritize federal grants to states and cities that “enforce prohibitions on open illicit drug use, urban camping and loitering, and urban squatting, and track the location of sex offenders.” The crux of the order is to remove America’s homeless population from our streets and find housing and services for them. This is designed to reduce crime, drug use, and prevent homeless encampments from literally occupying many business and residential neighborhoods of some of our cities, but will it? I will provide my perspective and that of the majority of law enforcement and fire services, since our two professions encounter and interact with the homeless more than any other segment of society. 

The homeless epidemic in America has spiraled out of control and become untenable. I’ll delve into the political realm and state that in our so-called Blue and Sanctuary Cities and States, it is worse than in any other area. Homeless persons have been around since the formation of city-states. We’re talking thousands of years. And in all of that time, we as a society have done very little to actually address this problem. Oh, we’ve thrown good money after bad at it, and yet it remains omnipresent with no end in sight. Why is it so pervasive? 

Let’s start with the obvious and most common cause: bad decisions made that lead to drug and/or alcohol abuse. There are others, of course, but I don’t want to hear from the so-called experts in the field who really only interact with the homeless and mentally ill in shelters and clinical settings. Almost every single homeless person we encounter uses one or the other, and usually both. How or why they arrived there is not for us (police & fire) to figure out or even be concerned with. 

I know that to the untrained, that may seem harsh, but when we encounter these folks, it usually means there’s a problem, and our focus is to mitigate that problem and move on to the next one. Again, harsh, but that’s all we can do at the moment. If the situation calls for it, we take them into protective custody, seek services for them, or arrest them. Before you say that arresting them may be cruel, understand that sometimes it is actually better for them, at least in the short term, because they will be housed, fed, and given medical care, which is an improvement over where we found them. It isn’t the job of the police to fix the situation that this person found themselves in; it’s Society’s. We just get called when Society doesn’t want to deal with it, which is most of the time. Swans don’t swim in sewers, and we have to dive into those sewers to address these problems, and that is perhaps the harshest reality of all.

Another condition that almost every homeless person suffers from is some form of mental illness. This is a co-occurring condition with drugs and alcohol that usually completely disables and prevents an individual from getting the help they need. They don’t know how to, or are unaware or incapable of, seeking resources where available. 

In recent years, we’ve seen some cities permit very large homeless encampments that exacerbate the problem, i.e., Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, New York, Seattle and many others. Note the pattern here. Everyone feels for these folks, but if you allow it and don’t provide enough resources for them, other than giving them hypodermic needles so they have clean syringes to shoot up (really?), it becomes a revolving door, nothing gets resolved, and very few actually get help. My wife and I drove into Portland, OR, in 2022 to fly home from a California/Oregon hiking trip. When we entered the city limits, we saw encampment after encampment throughout the city. Even as a cop in Miami-Dade County, in all my years of service, I never saw anything like it. What do these large and small encampments lead to? General crimes, drug use, assaults, sexual assaults, murders, and of course, human waste all over the streets and alleys. Looked like vintage medieval movie scenes from the 50s & 60s, except this is reality in America of all places! And these folks are the most vulnerable to crimes committed by A$$hole Bad Guys, and by other homeless, drug addicted, and mentally ill persons. They can’t catch a break. Sad to say the least.

As far as the President’s executive order goes, while enabling law enforcement to arrest many of our homeless, what are you really arresting them for? Vagrancy? Ok, cops can enforce the laws already on the books, if the city leaders allow them, but in the cities with thousands of homeless, where do you put them and for how long? The jails will immediately become overcrowded, and they will be forced to release many to make space for the real bad guys. The EO will provide funding for mental health and addiction services, but how many centers will we need? It is estimated that there are around 650,000 homeless people in the US, probably well under the actual number, with approximately 2,761 homeless shelters of one type or another available. When police take someone into protective custody due to a mental illness-psychotic break episode, or self-neglect, there are only about 180 Crisis Stabilization Units (CSU) nationwide. Do the math. There just isn’t enough of either to address the problem. Don’t get me started on our homeless military veterans because I will be going down a rabbit hole requiring its own article. Needless to say, we should not have a single homeless veteran on the streets. 

So let me tell you about my own experiences working with the homeless and mentally ill in Miami-Dade County. It comes from being heavily involved with the Crisis Intervention Team Project and working with the Miami-Dade Homeless Trust. We would take people into protective custody to a CSU. Not just my agency, Miami-Dade Police, but all of our sister agencies in the County, especially the City of Miami PD. It’s never-ending. We deliver, they get stabilized by the staff, given meds for the short-term, and then released. Right back onto the streets whence they came. For the homeless, we would “offer” services when beds are available. That’s right, when a bed becomes available at some of the few shelters we have, it is voluntary on the part of the individual if they wish to go. We can’t force them. When I transferred to our Miami International Airport Station, my new squad of officers on the midnight shift pointed out the homeless who reside inside the airport grounds, which include the terminal. They even had a permanent homeless resident who was 90-plus years old, who had no family or someone to care for him. He slept on benches, washed up in the restrooms, and did odd jobs for vendors so he could eat. The cops felt sorry for him and didn’t want to run him out or arrest him. Where would he go? I met him and I felt for him as well, and I understood why the officers were trying to help. They were compassionate and didn’t want to make his life even more difficult than it already was, and I, as their supervisor, backed their play. Sadly or mercifully, his time came, and he was found dead on one of those benches. His suffering was over, but what about all of the others? During the midnight shift, we offered outreach services I arranged with the Trust, as it was easier for the officers to locate them because passenger traffic was at a minimum. Services offered, very few are accepted. Many would rather stay on the streets because they know the services are both temporary and sometimes even restrictive and dangerous. What should we do with that?

Though the Executive Order is well-intentioned, it will take many years if we start building right now; hundreds, perhaps thousands of shelters and CSUs, with all of the accompanying staff and long-term resources that will be needed. I’ve heard it said that with 20 billion dollars, we can eradicate homelessness in the US. Big number, but can we? Do we have the wherewithal and stomach for this? President Trump has issued many orders that are now law, yet there are cities and states that already don’t obey these orders, such as no men in women’s sports. What makes any of us believe they will follow this one? 

I remain hopeful but skeptical, as our experiences as cops and firefighters would dictate. American society, ALL of American society, has to get on board, or throwing more money and laws at this won’t do a damn thing!