Elon Musk calls homelessness a ‘lie’ and ‘propaganda’ — and Trump is listening

Sign up for the daily Inside Washington email for exclusive US coverage and analysis sent to your inbox Get our free Inside Washington email Get our free Inside Washington email SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Trump, meanwhile, says people experiencing homelessness should be forced into treatment or mental institutions “or face arrest.” His campaign has promised to “end the nightmare” of the “dangerously deranged” with a plan to “open large parcels of inexpensive land, bring in doctors, psychiatrists, social workers, and drug rehab specialists, and create tent cities where the homeless can be relocated and their problems identified.” He wants to “bring back mental institutions to house and rehabilitate those who are severely mentally ill or dangerously deranged with the goal of reintegrating them back into society.” Musk and Trump are not alone. “But he doesn’t care, and he and his billionaire friends are using homeless people as political footballs, and it’s wrong and it’s disgusting.” open image in gallery More than 100 cities have enacted so-called ‘camping bans’ that prohibit people experiencing homelessness from sleeping in public In January 2023, the last year for which the full data is available, more than 650,000 people were experiencing homelessness on a single night in the U.S., marking a 12 percent increase from 2022, and the most ever recorded by the Department of Housing and Urban Development in nearly 20 years. While Musk describes people experiencing homelessness as “violent,” they are more likely to be victims of a crime than perpetrators — what the Benioff Homelessness and Housing Initiative at the University of California, San Francisco calls a “hidden epidemic” fueled by a series of policy failures that have forced more than half a million Americans on the streets each night. We have seen that before and we know how it ends.” open image in gallery Homeless rights activists rally against a Supreme Court decision that allows states to criminalize people sleeping outside even if shelters are full Trump has vowed to “ end the scourge of homelessness.” In the final year of his last presidency in 2020, the number of people experiencing homelessness had grown for the fourth year in a row.