Bay Area leaders, advocates react to Trump's executive order on unsheltered homelessness

SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) -- President Trump's executive order promises to crack down on unsheltered homelessness by allowing cities and states to remove unhoused people from the streets and put them into treatment centers.

A move largely seen as an expansion of a recent Supreme Court decision, with some key differences says political scientist Melissa Michelson.

"The Grants Pass Supreme Court decision said that you can clear encampments, even if you have nowhere for folks to go. This is going a step further and saying you can put people into institutions against their will," she said.

The president's order has received both strong support and sharp criticism.

Randy Shaw is the director of the Tenderloin Housing Clinic in San Francisco.

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He says many local jurisdictions don't have the resources to place every unhoused person into treatment centers.

Shaw tells ABC7 News the cutting of Medicaid services for an estimated millions of Americans as a part of Trump's 'Big, Beautiful Bill' makes that problem even worse.

"The federal government is completely ignoring its responsibilities and defunding the solutions we do have with these healthcare cuts. They're savage," he said.

Homelessness in the U.S. is at a record high.

But Shaw doesn't believe a one-size-fits-all approach will work, as places like San Francisco have different issues than other cities around the country.

MORE: California creating new agency to focus solely on housing and homelessness

In the South Bay, San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan said while he has issues with parts of Trump's order, he thought there were also some pragmatic elements to it.

"We've got to get people off the streets faster. We should be careful though not to paint with too broad of a brushstroke," Mahan said.

Michelson says she expects the new executive order to be challenged in court.

But if it's allowed to stand, she believes local elected officials could use it as political cover to try and address community concerns over the homelessness crisis.

"If they wanted, this gives them yet another tool to argue for getting folks off the streets, clearing encampments, putting folks into mental health treatment," Michelson said.