Angela Hart
WASHINGTON — Every evening, Abdullah Ibrahim retreats from the streets right into a wooded stretch alongside the Potomac River.
As evening falls and temperatures drop, he erects a tent and builds a hearth beneath a cover of pine, hemlock, and cedar timber.
He evades authorities by rotating use of three tents of various colours at three campsites. As day breaks, he dismantles his shelter, rolls up his belongings, and hides them for the following evening. “They don’t see you if you’re in the woods,” the 32-year-old mentioned. “But make sure it’s broken down by morning or they’ll find you.”
During the day, he wanders, stopping at a public library to heat up or a soup kitchen to eat. What’s necessary is to not draw consideration to himself for being homeless.
“Police want us out of the way,” he mentioned, wearing a grey jacket and carrying none of his possessions. “Out of sight, out of mind.”
Ibrahim has been deliberate about mixing in since August, when President Donald Trump positioned the district’s police beneath federal control and ordered National Guard troopers to patrol its streets. The president also ordered homeless folks to depart instantly. “There will be no ‘MR. NICE GUY,’” he posted.
The Trump administration says encampment sweeps have diminished the visibility of homelessness, thereby enhancing the town. “There is no disputing that Washington, DC is a safer, cleaner, and more beautiful city thanks to President Trump’s historic actions to restore the nation’s capital,” White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers mentioned.
While there might look like fewer homeless folks within the nation’s capital now, they haven’t disappeared.
In interviews, homeless folks mentioned they’re in a continuing shuffle, hiding in plain sight. During the day, they keep on the transfer, grabbing meals at soup kitchens and resting now and again in public libraries, on park benches, or at bus stops. At evening, many unsheltered folks mattress down in enterprise doorways, on park sidewalks, and on church stoops. Some experience the bus all evening, whereas a number of shelter in emergency rooms. Others discover respite within the woods or flee to suburbs in Virginia or Maryland.
There are about 5,100 homeless folks in Washington, D.C., together with in short-term shelters, in response to an early-2025 homelessness tally. After Trump ordered the crackdown on public homelessness, folks dwelling in makeshift communities scattered and are actually dwelling within the shadows. City officers estimated in August that nearly 700 homeless folks had been dwelling open air with out tents or different shelter.
As winter attracts close to, they’re uncovered to the weather and develop sicker as continual illnesses similar to diabetes and coronary heart illness go untreated. Street drugs suppliers say that, because the National Guard was deployed, they’ve confronted monumental issue discovering sufferers. Many caught up in sweeps have had their lifesaving medicines thrown away, and they’re extra prone to miss medical appointments as a result of they’re always on the transfer. Street drugs suppliers say they will’t discover their sufferers to ship medicine or transport them to medical appointments. The fixed chaos can suck sufferers with psychological sickness and substance use deeper into drug and alcohol dependancy, elevating the danger of overdose.
Caseworkers report related disruptions, saying as purchasers get misplaced, they break connections important for acquiring housing paperwork, significantly IDs and Social Security playing cards.
District officers and well being suppliers say this cascade will make homelessness worse, threatening public well being and public security and racking up monumental prices for the well being care system.
“It was already hard locating people, but the federal presence just made it worse,” mentioned Tobie Smith, a road drugs physician and the chief director of Street Health D.C.
The Homeless Shuffle
Chris Jones was born and raised in Washington, D.C., however now could be homeless, having been pushed out of his tent close to the White House within the preliminary days of the federal homelessness crackdown. He mentioned two of his tents had been taken throughout sweeps. Now, sleeping on a sidewalk exterior a church, he doesn’t hassle making an attempt to get one other one. “Why? What’s the point? It’ll just get thrown away again.”
Jones, 57, has a extreme knee damage that stops him from strolling some days and mentioned he was scheduled for a knee alternative in December. He mentioned it’s necessary to remain the place he’s — he depends on a close-by drugstore to refill his medicines for bipolar dysfunction, diabetes, and hypertension. When he’s hungry, he goes to a soup kitchen for a meal or tries to get a cheeseburger and a soda from a fast-food joint throughout the road.
It’s necessary for him to remain exterior the church, he mentioned, so his case supervisor can discover him when a everlasting housing slot opens up. If it will get too chilly, he mentioned, he’ll cross the road and sleep within the doorway of a enterprise, which might present a bit extra shelter. He desires to get indoors, however for now, he waits.
Since taking management of Washington’s police drive, the Trump administration has ratcheted up pressure on cities and counties throughout the nation to clear homeless encampments beneath risk of arrest, quotation, or detention. It has ordered or threatened related National Guard deployments in Los Angeles; Portland, Oregon; and different cities with massive homeless populations.
Rogers, the White House spokesperson, mentioned the president is sustaining National Guard and federal legislation enforcement presence within the nation’s capital “to ensure the long-term success of the federal operation.” Since March, metropolis and federal officers have eliminated greater than 130 homeless encampments, she mentioned, although some native homelessness consultants say that quantity may very well be inflated.
The Supreme Court final yr made it easier for elected officers and legislation enforcement to effective or arrest homeless folks for dwelling exterior. Then, in July of this yr, the president issued an government order calling for a nationwide crackdown on city tenting, together with a large elimination of individuals dwelling open air and compelled psychological well being or substance use therapy.
Trump can also be spearheading an overhaul of homelessness coverage, transferring to slash funding for permanent housing and companies for homeless folks. The transfer would restrict the usage of a long-standing federal coverage often called “Housing First” that provides housing with out mandating psychological well being or dependancy therapy. The National Alliance to End Homelessness warns the transfer dangers displacing at least 170,000 people in everlasting supportive housing. The Department of Housing and Urban Development paused the plan on Dec. 8 to make revisions, which it “intends” to do, federal housing officials said.
City officers say they’re complying with the Trump administration’s forceful marketing campaign towards homeless folks sheltering exterior. Pressured by the White House, native officers mentioned they’ve gotten extra aggressive in breaking apart camps. Advocates for homeless folks say among the sweeps have been carried out at evening and others with little or no discover to maneuver. City leaders imagine they may very well be finished extra compassionately by providing companies and shelter.
“We’ve pivoted from the notion of allowing encampments if they didn’t violate public health or safety to a position of, ‘We don’t want you in the streets,’” mentioned Wayne Turnage, deputy mayor for District of Columbia Health and Human Services, who oversees encampment cleanups. “It’s unsafe, it’s unhealthy, and it’s dangerous.” Yet he acknowledges the encampment sweeps can waste metropolis assets as caseworkers and road drugs suppliers scramble to seek out their purchasers and sufferers.
Advocates say the Trump administration is inciting worry and distrust between homeless folks and people working to assist them whereas losing taxpayer {dollars} used to offer care and place folks into housing. There are, nevertheless, far fewer tents and large-scale encampments seen to vacationers and residents.
“People found safety in those communities and service providers could find them. Now there are people with guns and flashing lights dislocating folks experiencing homelessness without notice and just throwing stuff away,” mentioned Jesse Rabinowitz, marketing campaign and communications director for the National Homelessness Law Center.
District officers say some folks have accepted emergency shelter. But at the same time as the town works to attach folks with companies and develop shelter capability, officers acknowledge there isn’t sufficient everlasting housing or short-term beds for everybody.
And there will probably be fewer locations for folks dwelling exterior to go.
The metropolis, in its fiscal yr 2026 finances, concentrated its homelessness funding on households, funding 336 new everlasting supportive housing vouchers. Yet it lower funding for short-term housing for each households and people and offered no new everlasting supportive housing vouchers for people. That means fewer housing slots for single adults, who make up most of these wandering the streets. City officers mentioned, nevertheless, that they’ve slotted 260 extra everlasting housing items for homeless people or households into their development pipeline.
Worsening Health Care
The fallout is inundating native soup kitchens with demand, together with Miriam’s Kitchen in Foggy Bottom. The native establishment supplies sizzling meals, housing help, and heat blankets to folks in want.
Caseworkers say it’s turning into more and more tough to assist purchasers safe IDs and different paperwork wanted for housing and different social companies.
“I’m looking everywhere, but I can’t find people,” mentioned Cyria Knight, a caseworker at Miriam’s Kitchen. “Most of my clients went to Virginia.”
It’s unclear how a lot of the district’s homeless inhabitants has fanned out to neighboring Virginia and Maryland communities. There had been an estimated 9,700 homeless people within the area in January, months earlier than Trump’s crackdown. Four of six counties round Washington noticed homelessness rise from 2024, whereas it fell 9% in the district.
“I’m not seeing my patients for a month or more, and then when I do, their chronic conditions are uncontrolled. They’ve been in and out of the ER, and they’re more likely to be hospitalized,” mentioned Anna Graham, a road drugs nurse practitioner for Unity Health Care, a community of clinics in Washington. “It’s just setting us back.”
Graham’s group stations its cellular medical van exterior Miriam’s Kitchen at dinnertime to raised discover sufferers.
Willie Taylor, 63, was determining the place to sleep for the evening after grabbing dinner from Miriam’s. He noticed Graham to obtain his medicines for superior lung illness, seizures, continual ache, and different well being issues.
He has issue strolling and desires a wheelchair, which is difficult as a result of he doesn’t have a everlasting deal with. Taylor and his medical suppliers say his earlier wheelchairs have been stolen whereas he slept open air at evening. He makes use of a purchasing cart to maintain him regular, strolling round all day, till dusk.
On a chilly November evening, Graham helped Taylor work out his each day medicines and checked his vitals. The group handed him a heat coat and hand heaters earlier than sending him again exterior.
After strolling for about 45 minutes, he discovered a bit of park pavement the place he might construct a mattress out of tarps and sleeping luggage.
“My body can’t take this,” Taylor mentioned, getting ready to sleep. “There’s ice on the concrete. I’m in so much pain; it hurts so much worse when it’s cold.”
Homeless folks die younger and value the well being care system greater than housed folks, largely as a result of circumstances go untreated on the streets, and after they do search care, many go to the ER. Among Medicaid enrollees, homeless folks have been estimated to incur $18,764 a yr in spending, in contrast with $7,561 for different enrollees.
Over on the So Others Might Eat soup kitchen earlier that day, Tyree Kelley was ending his breakfast of a sausage sandwich and hard-boiled eggs. He was contemplating going right into a shelter. The streets had been turning into too harmful for somebody like him, he mentioned, referring to the police and National Guard presence. He was feeling the lack of an encampment group that may watch his again.
He’s been to the ER a minimum of seven instances this yr to get take care of a damaged ankle he sustained falling off an electrical scooter. The accident prompted him to lose his job and medical health insurance as a garbageman, he mentioned. His state of affairs has prompted him to sink deeper right into a despair that started three years in the past after his mom died, he mentioned.
Then his father and sister died this yr. He started to numb his ache with beer.
“You get so depressed, being out here,” mentioned Kelley, 42. “It gets addictive. You start to not care about even changing your clothes.”
His despair additionally led him to hunt out marijuana. Then he smoked a joint laced with fentanyl. The overdose despatched him to the hospital for days.
“I actually died and came back,” he mentioned, crediting different homeless folks with administering naloxone and saving his life. “I need to get out of this, but I feel so stuck.”
A number of blocks west of the White House sits a vacant plot of land that earlier this yr held greater than a dozen tents. Workers within the space sense what they don’t all the time see.
“I was here when this was all cleared. A bulldozer came in, and all their stuff was thrown in a garbage truck,” mentioned Ray Szemborski, who works throughout the road from the now-empty lot. “People are still homeless. I still see them around underneath the bridge. Sometimes they’re at bus stops, sometimes just walking around. Their tents are gone but they’re still here.”
