Trump's DC Occupation Costs 4 Times More Than It Would Take to House City's Entire Homeless Population [View all]

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https://www.commondreams.org/news/trump-national-guard-housing-cost

Trump's DC Occupation Costs 4 Times More Than It Would Take to House City's Entire Homeless Population

"This militarized spending comes at the expense of federal programs—like public housing—that actually do prevent crime and improve health and education outcomes," said researcher Hanna Homestead.

STEPHEN PRAGER
Aug 22, 20

Last week, when Trump federalized Washington, DC's police force and deployed the National Guard to occupy its streets, one of his main orders was to "end vagrancy" by destroying homeless encampments and arresting and forcibly relocating the people taking shelter there.

But according to an investigation published on Wednesday by Hanna Homestead of the National Priorities Project, in collaboration with The Intercept, deploying the National Guard and "getting rid of the slums" is costing far more than it would cost to simply provide housing to every homeless person in the city.

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According to previous reporting, National Guard deployments cost the US government $530 per guard member each day. Using that figure, Homestead estimated that it would cost just over $1.1 million.

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According to the most recent data from the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), there are about 5,600 people experiencing either sheltered and unsheltered homelessness in DC on a given night. Operating an affordable housing unit for each one of them, the data shows, costs about $45.44 per person, per day, on average in DC.

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($530. Caviar and champagne at the Four Seasons? Someone’s making bank.)