President Trump signed an executive order that makes it easier for states to remove homeless

encampments and force homeless people into mental health or addiction treatment programs.

Our Lisa Desjardine explains.

President Trump's order lays out his goal clearly.

He wants to move more people who are homeless into long-term institutions and hospitals, including involuntarily.

He also plans a dramatic shift in federal funds, away from programs that place people into

housing first, and instead pushing for tougher, immediate requirements for treatment.

Homeless rates have been steadily rising since 2017.

A federal count found that more than 770,000 people were living in shelters or outside on a single night last year.

For more on this latest executive action and what it may mean, I'm joined by David Ovae, national reporter focusing on opioids and addictions for the Washington Post.

There is a great deal in this order, David.

First, does President Trump have the power to either encourage or tell states that they need to

put more people in institutions, even involuntarily?

Well, no, not specifically.

And that's one of the interesting things about this order is that he's really, they're really

trying to incentivize and push states into doing this.

Remember, states set their particular laws.

They set their criteria for how they handle involuntary commitments.

So really, this is a state issue, but the federal government certainly has a lot of sway.

And they can, for example, in the executive order, they talk about prioritizing grants

for states that are jurisdictions that comply with this order and crack down on open-air drug use

and other other things to combat quote-unquote vaguely vagrancy on streets.

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