police officers. His last words—“I’m sorry,” “Dad, help me”—were recorded. He died five days later. The officers were acquitted.
These aren’t exceptions. They’re signals.
The order discourages harm-reduction entirely. It encourages shelters to separate by sex—code for excluding transgender people—and reward those deemed “compliant.” LGBTQ+ individuals, long subject to psychiatric pathologization, face disproportionate risk in the very institutions meant to protect them.
Compassion, when weaponized, becomes camouflage for control.
Some officials speak frankly: they’re overwhelmed. Emergency rooms clogged with behavioral health crises. Police pressured to clear sidewalks. News cameras fixated on tents. The political cost of visible inaction is higher than the moral cost of questionable action.
But urgency without infrastructure becomes force.
And history has seen it before.
In 1963, President Kennedy signed the Community Mental Health Act to replace institutions with neighborhood clinics. The asylums emptied. The funding never came. Reagan-era cuts severed what fragile systems remained. The idea of care wasn’t wrong. The execution was absent.
“Public order doesn’t begin with removal. It begins with presence.”
There are better models. Salt Lake City’s housing-first approach reduced chronic homelessness by 91% over a decade. In Vermont, mobile crisis teams now respond to mental health calls instead of police. These strategies work—but they require patience, dollars, and sustained leadership. None are offered in the current order.
Back on Western Avenue, someone locked the gate behind Derek’s plywood shrine. The candles are gone. The chessboard is still there. Two bishops and a pawn remain—an unfinished game no one’s coming back to finish.
He was barefoot when they took him.
We still don’t know where he is.
Bibliography
1. Ovalle, David. “Trump Pushes Forcible Hospitalization of Homeless People with Order.” Washington Post, July 24, 2025. https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2025/07/24/trump-homeless-forced-hospitalization-executive-order/. — Reports on Trump’s executive order encouraging civil commitment for the homeless and outlines reactions from experts and advocates.
2. Executive Office of the President. Ending Crime and Disorder on America’s Streets. Executive Order, July 24, 2025. — Full text of Trump’s executive order mandating institutionalization of the homeless for “public order.”
3. The White House. “Fact Sheet: President Donald J. Trump Takes Action to End Crime and Disorder on America’s Streets.” July 24, 2025. — Summary of the executive order’s key provisions and its political framing.
4. American Civil Liberties Union. “ACLU Condemns Trump Executive Order Targeting Disabled and Unhoused People.” Press release, July 24, 2025. — Civil rights organization’s response warning against forced institutionalization and privacy violations.
5. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). “Deinstitutionalization: Community Treatment and Civil Commitment in the U.S.” SAMHSA Background Brief. — Historical context on deinstitutionalization and the evolution of civil commitment standards.