No Roundup of Our Loved Ones!   

FASMI Opposes Trump’s Executive order on Homelessness

On the July 24 Presidential Action, “Ending Crime and Disorder on
America’s Streets”

Families Advocating for the Seriously Mentally Ill (FASMI) questions the
language in this Executive Order, questions the intentions of the government to provide
treatment to those living with serious mental illness through private prisons and other facilities,
and questions whether our defenseless loved ones can survive what the president has planned for
them.

This Executive Order co-opts the language of family advocates seeking humane, effective care
for their loved ones with mental illnesses to promulgate a plan to criminalize and institutionalize
people who are seen as disposable.

The Executive Order leaves us with many unanswered questions. For example:
• Who will pay for these institutions and where will they be located?
• Who will decide which detainees are deserving of care and which are criminals?
• Will the people in these long-term institutions ever be set free or allowed to return to their
communities?
• Will families be informed as to where their loved one has been taken? Will they have any
input into their treatment? Will they be allowed to visit? Will their loved one be allowed to call
home?
• What will law enforcement and housing authorities do with the protected health information
of people living in public housing and receiving homelessness assistance?
• When they say that the Attorney General will ensure that “detainees with serious mental
illness are not released into the public because of a lack of forensic bed capacity,” where are they
intending to send them?
• Will a history of mental illness be used to justify the denial of housing, followed by the
incarceration of these now homeless people?
• Can we trust the answers we are given when we ask these questions?

The policies promoted by this Executive Order are not those of a country committed to the “long-
term” well being of all of its citizens, least of all citizens with serious mental illness. Instead, it is
a formula for the redirection of public dollars into private pockets to fund remote camps and
prisons free from the kind of oversight that ensures humane and effective treatment. We have
seen the punishing tactics that have been deployed upon the undocumented and others snared in
ICE’s nets. The treatment of immigrants in places like “Alligator Alcatraz” is a chilling example
that draws back the veil of promises made by the current administration.

As family advocates who have long fought for systemic change in an under-resourced and
ineffective mental health system, we are not defending the status quo. We decry
the unintended consequences of laws enacted in the 1960s that were meant to curtail the abuses
of the abhorrent insane asylums of the early twentieth century. These laws left us with a system
that does not acknowledge that those suffering from psychosis are often living in an alternate
reality and cannot recognize their own need for help. This system demands that we wait until
they are deemed dangerous or gravely disabled before providing care that is then rationed out by
the hour or day. Because of this failure, our loved ones are more likely to wind up incarcerated
than to receive life-saving care.

We fear that this Executive Order will take us further in the wrong direction, back to the “snake
pits” of the past century. Despite the appropriation of family talking points and the promises to
incorporate programs like Assisted Outpatient Treatment and Mental Health Diversion Courts,
the broader language of the order belies these promises and conveys a darker vision that is cruel
and punitive. The bottom line is we cannot trust Donald Trump to act in the best interests of our
beloved family members..

Instead of this grim vision for long-term institutionalization that is outlined in the Executive
Order, we demand an unbroken continuum of compassionate care that includes supportive
housing, community-based services, and humane and therapeutic hospitals. It is always
preferable for treatment to be voluntary, but when the illness left untreated renders a person
unable to recognize their own need for treatment and to direct their own care, then a period of
mandated treatment, whether inpatient or outpatient, must be provided. There must be
protections in place so that due process is provided and so that such interventions last only as
long as needed to truly stabilize the person. Regardless of the treatment setting, a return to the
community once the person is stabilized should always be the goal, and no one should be
displaced from a community where they have family and support networks.

The administration has made its priorities clear: ICE now commands a larger budget than the
Army or the Marines, while budgets for Medicaid, for Substance Abuse and Mental Health
Services Administration (SAMHSA), and for Housing and Urban Development (HUD) have
shrunk by orders of magnitude. Our already underfunded hospitals, outpatient programs, and
supportive housing will disappear, thanks to these cuts. Where will they send all the people they
are sweeping off the streets? ICE has the answer.

We raise our voices with others who name the abuses of power enabled by this Executive Order
and close with the question: where will these abuses stop?

On Behalf of Families Advocating for the Seriously Mentally Ill (FASMI):
Patricia Fontana, Tina Heringer, Patricia Wentzel, Barbara Wilson