(WASHINGTON, D.C – September 18th, 2025)

Everybody needs a safe place to live. But instead of lowering rents and fixing our broken housing system, politicians are setting the stage for violence by cutting funding for vital programs, passing laws that make it a crime to sleep outside, and continually demonizing and vilifying homeless people. Their actions have devastating and fatal consequences.  

Three separate incidents within the last week highlight this horrific trend.  

• Over the weekend, Fox News host Brian Kilmeade, on national television, called for the mass murder of homeless people. 
• Second, on September 15, homeless people in Minneapolis were the victims of a mass shooting. Instead of responding with housing for the victims, the government responded with bulldozers. Those who were impacted, including people who were shot, had their tents and belongings thrown away, including an urn containing the ashes of one unhoused person’s child. Residents are racing to secure a new place to live before winter starts. To support them, click here to donate. 
• And third, also on September 15th, a homeless man named Corey Zukatis was found dead, hanging from a tree in Mississippi. The same day, a Black man named Demartravion “Trey” Reed was found dead, also hanging from a tree, also in Mississippi. These deaths harken back to the racial terror that is endemic to this country. Let’s be clear: this too is political violence.  

The constant dehumanization of homeless people is part of Trump’s authoritarian agenda.
Trump and his cronies are intentionally targeting communities that our society views as disposable, including homeless people, to see how we respond. However, we know that what starts with homeless folks will spread to anyone who those in power don’t like or don’t want to see. We must stand up now and say “no” to anti-homeless laws, no to detention camps, no to dehumanization, and no to Trump’s fascist takeover.   

Take action and fight back.
Below are three things you can do right now to protect the rights of our homeless neighbors:  

• Demand that Congress pass the Housing Not Handcuffs Act
• Join the Housing Not Handcuffs Campaign 
• Donate to those impacted by the Minneapolis shooting  

Violence against unhoused people is not new.
Still, none of this is new. Violence against homeless people happens daily and hardly makes any news. We remember Cornelius Taylor, a man who was killed by a government vehicle that destroyed his shelter in Atlanta. We remember James Edward Oakley, who was similarly killed in California. We remember August Buck, who froze to death after Florida threw away this tent to comply with a cookie-cutter anti-homeless law peddled by the billionaire-backed Cicero Institute.  And we remember Samantha Crabtree, who was given a ticket for sleeping outside while in active labor in Kentucky, during the enforcement of yet another Cicero law.  

The violence doesn’t stop there. Laws that kill homeless people, especially those who are Black, brown, and indigenous, trans, or disabled, are now official White House Policy.  

Government inaction and failure to solve homelessness is also violence. People living outside die 15-20 years sooner than people who live in stable housing. A system that can find money to send the National Guard to take over D.C., but refuses to fund housing, is violent. Gutting healthcare is violent. Kidnapping migrants is violent. Poverty wages are violent.  

Another world is possible.
It doesn’t have to be this way. Everyone —regardless of what they look like, where they are from, or who they love —should have a life of safety, dignity, and belonging. We know that the safest communities are not those with the military patrolling the streets; they are the ones where everybody has their needs, like housing, met.  

The solution to homelessness is housing and support, not handcuffs and dehumanization. In a country as prosperous as ours, we have more than enough money to ensure that everybody has a safe place to live, food to eat, and the care they need.  We need our politicians to use their power to ensure that everybody has a safe place to call home.

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About the National Homelessness Law Center   

The National Homelessness Law Center is committed to protecting the rights of unhoused people across the United States and to advocating for policies that prevent and end homelessness, ensuring that all people have access to safe and adequate housing.