By Carol Sainthilaire, Executive Director of The Waterfront Project
What if your city had to choose between federal housing dollars and your civil rights?
That’s the choice this morning’s Executive Order demands. Its title—“Ending Crime and Disorder on America’s Streets”—says plenty. It isn’t housing policy. It isn’t public health strategy. It’s a smokescreen.
As a housing policy leader in New Jersey, I’ve seen firsthand what happens when policy ignores the root causes of homelessness. We serve communities across Hudson, Union, and Bergen Counties with legal aid and HUD-certified housing counseling. And this Executive Order doesn’t protect our most vulnerable neighbors—it punishes them.
This Executive Order Isn’t About Safety. It’s About Disappearance.
Let’s be clear about what it does:
- It pushes for forced psychiatric commitment of unhoused people—no threat required.
- It punishes cities that don’t sweep encampments or charge people with “vagrancy.”
- It aims to cut harm reduction programs like syringe exchanges.
- It mandates data-sharing from shelters to law enforcement.
This isn’t reform, it’s cruel. It paints poverty as criminal and treats visibility as the problem, not homelessness itself. It ignores the reasons people lose their homes: rent spikes, wage stagnation, racism, and a broken mental health system.
In New Jersey, the Human Toll Will Be Heavy.
Last year, over 12,000 people in New Jersey were unhoused. One in four lived with a serious mental illness. Many others were battling addiction. But this EO doesn’t increase services—it criminalizes survival.
We already don’t have enough shelter beds or mental health programs. We need more trauma-informed support, not more jail beds or psychiatric holds. Coercion doesn’t build trust. It breaks it.
Nonprofits like ours, often small and under-resourced, can’t comply with federal surveillance mandates. We shouldn’t have to choose between doing good work and doing what’s legal.
Housing First Is Proven. It’s Also Under Threat.
We use the Housing First model. Why? Because housing is foundational. It lets people stabilize, heal, and rebuild. We’ve helped survivors of domestic violence keep their homes. We’ve stopped evictions for seniors who’ve lived decades in one place.
We do this without conditions. No drug tests. No mandatory programs. No threats. Just help.
This EO threatens all that. It could cut off funding for programs like ours—just because we believe in dignity, not discipline.
What New Jersey Can—and Must—Do
To our leaders: defend the rights of the unhoused. Don’t trade autonomy for access. Don’t let Washington dictate how we care for our communities. Protect harm reduction and housing-first programs. Diversify funding where possible.
To fellow providers: we need each other. Stand together. Align on principles. Document everything.
To residents and donors: speak up. This EO doesn’t reflect our values. We’re better than this. And silence, now, would be complicity.
The Waterfront Project Is Staying the Course
Our mission hasn’t changed: protect housing, secure justice, and support those most at risk. We will not surveil. We will not stigmatize. We will not be silent.
Forced treatment isn’t compassion. Criminalizing homelessness isn’t reform. And housing, when it’s real, doesn’t come with handcuffs.