As the Trump administration directs federal and local law enforcement to crack down on homelessness in the nation's capital, experts say one tactic they're using — clearing encampments where unhoused people often live — is counterproductive and ineffective.
President Donald Trump said encampments have turned "our capital into a wasteland" during an Aug. 11 news conference. The White House has threatened criminal action against people who don't comply with orders to leave.
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It's part of a wider push across the country by Democrats and Republican lawmakers alike to take drastic action to reduce homelessness. In California last year, Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom issued an executive order directing state agencies to clear encampments.
But the effort is often misguided and unlikely to actually help people experiencing homelessness, said Mary Frances Kenion, chief equity officer at the National Alliance to End Homelessness.
"The bottom line is that homelessness has continued to rise year over year, particularly unsheltered homelessness, and people do want action. And for some, the action and the path that they are choosing is to simply remove people from public view," Kenion said.
What happens when encampments are cleared?
Experts who've witnessed encampment clearings — which happen all around the country — tell PBS News that the process typically starts with a notice period of a few days, followed by a government department removing the structures and belongings of people in the encampment.
Sometimes the organization or agency says they'll store people's belongings for a set period of time. An FAQ page on encampment clearings by Washington, D.C.'s government advises people who want to keep their belongings to tell police or other officials clearing the encampment.
A note is posted on a tent detailing a scheduled encampment cleanup by the Deputy Mayor for Health and Human Services in Washington Circle on August 14, 2025 in Washington, DC. Photo by Kayla Bartkowski/Getty Images
"If you are arrested or otherwise separated from your belongings during clearance, you should ask the police where your belongings will be stored so that you can retrieve them later," the site adds.
In practice, many people's belongings are thrown out, said Sam Tsemberis, psychologist and founder of the Pathways Housing First Institute in Los Angeles. If they are stored, they can be hard to locate, added Karen Vicari, director of public policy at Mental Health America of California.
Ultimately, people can lose not only their shelter and mementos, but also government-issued IDs and documents, which can make it that much harder to get the aid they need, Kenion said.
Where do people go?
One rationale for clearing encampments is that people living there should instead be living in shelters or other temporary housing. But not only is there a shortage of shelter beds nationwide, Kenion said, "even people who accept shelter still remain homeless."
People sometimes hesitate to go to shelters for many reasons, experts say. Some shelters don't accept pets, partners of the opposite sex or families. Some are only open at night, leaving people with nowhere to go during the days. Some enforce rules that people are either unwilling or unable to comply with, such as sobriety or religious requirements.
A man clears his belongings from a homeless encampment near the Lincoln Memorial August 14, 2025 in Washington, DC. Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images
"Shuffling people around through displacement is so unhelpful. It is damaging to relationships that service providers have worked really hard to make. It is harmful to being able to keep up with people," Kenion said.
"It doesn't serve anyone — not service providers, not people experiencing homelessness," she added.
People who are cleared from encampments typically do head to shelters temporarily, or remain unhoused outside near where they were living.
"I've seen people literally just go across the street or to the next street down," said Alex Visotzky, senior California policy fellow at the National Alliance to End Homelessness.
"They know where the resources are in that community. They don't want to go somewhere where they suddenly have to figure out, 'How do I get a meal? How do I get the bus to get to the doctor's office? How do I get the bus to get to the case manager's office?'"
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Vicari said her experience matches that description.
"We forget that they're human beings and they have their own community and their friends," she said. People are just more likely to find "less visible" places to stay, she added.
What works better?
Experts say that encampment clearing done well, while not done often, can lead to effective reductions in homelessness. Data may bear that out as well.
An annual study of homelessness in three Los Angeles neighborhoods released last month by RAND found that "rough sleeping," in which people live literally unsheltered without a tent, car or any other structure, "showed no significant decline." Meanwhile, tent encampments were stagnant in Venice, but they dropped in Hollywood, showing a decrease in unsheltered homelessness in that neighborhood by almost half.
The RAND study's authors noted that while it's not possible to definitively say Los Angeles' initiative to clear encampments directly caused a reduction in unsheltered homelessness, "it seems likely that the program played a large role."
So what helps make that effort successful in the longer term? For one, it includes providing weeks of notice before the encampment is cleared, Visotzky said. It also means the clearing is conducted by a trusted service provider, not a sanitation department or law enforcement. Those service providers can spend time identifying specific needs of residents and offering them structured resources, such as places to go with pets or housing that isn't segregated by sex.
"When you are anchoring your solutions and your approach into housing first and then wrapping the supports and services needed to get people towards stability, it works," Kenion said.
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Then, by the date of the actual clearing, the encampment is already largely empty, with only things former residents have verified are disposable left behind.
Kenion pointed to Dallas as a model, which effectively eliminated homelessness in its downtown with its "Street to Home Initiative," according to Housing Forward, the organization that leads data collection for the city. Over the course of just under a year, more than 250 people moved into housing with wraparound services, according to their report this May.
Nobody who works in homelessness services wants to see encampments, Visotzky said.
"Encampments are a sign that we have not succeeded in connecting folks to the housing and services that they need. But there's a human-centered way and a trauma-informed way to approach moving folks out of an encampment and back into housing," he said.
According to Visotzky, the alternative and less effective approach "refuses to see the humanity" in encampments and instead discusses them as though they're piles of trash.
The right approach sees the people "who have things that they value, have possessions that they treasure, and just need a little bit of a hand getting back into housing."
Daria Nastasia contributed reporting to this story.