Dr. Robert Marbut, a former federal homelessness official, said on Newsmax Saturday that President Donald Trump’s new executive order marks a turning point by reversing policies in Democrat-led cities that he believes have enabled drug use while neglecting treatment.
Marbut, former executive director of the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness, voiced strong support for President Donald Trump’s July 24 executive order targeting homelessness, addiction, and public disorder.
Appearing on “The Count,” Marbut said the order is a needed correction to policies in many Democrat-controlled cities, which he claims have made it “easy to get high and hard to get treatment.”
“What President Trump's executive order does is start to make it easy to get treatment and hard to get high,” Marbut said.
“Three-fourths of the people experiencing homelessness in the United States on the street level either have untreated mental illness or substance abuse,” Marbut said. “If 75 percent are struggling with addiction, we have to address that directly.”
The executive order asserts that homelessness has reached crisis levels, with more than 274,000 people living on the streets in a single night during the final year of the previous administration, the highest figure ever recorded. It calls for expanded use of civil commitment laws to move homeless individuals with addiction and mental health issues into long-term treatment.
Criticizing so-called “free city” approaches, Marbut said allowing people to use hard drugs in the name of personal freedom is not compassionate.
“Well, people who think that … have lost all common sense,” he said. “Being dignified, respectful, and caring about a person means we have to provide treatment.”
He compared addiction to a suicidal crisis. “If a person was going to jump off a bridge, we wouldn't say, ‘If you want to jump, jump.’ We pick you up and get you into treatment. Why aren’t we doing that with fentanyl?”
Marbut also targeted cities operating taxpayer-funded “safe consumption” sites, calling them counterproductive.
“And a lot of the cities have been using taxpayers' subsidies to have safe consumption sites… We’re using taxpayers' [money to] allow and enable people to do more drugs rather than get into treatment,” he said.
“That’s just crazy.”
According to the Trump administration, past efforts have failed because they focused on housing or services while ignoring core issues like drug dependency and untreated mental illness.
Trump’s order states that “surrendering our cities and citizens to disorder and fear is neither compassionate to the homeless nor other citizens,” while calling for a new strategy centered on public safety and long-term treatment.
Marbut said the shift is long overdue. “Especially with fentanyl,” he said, “we cannot keep doing what we’ve been doing. This is a life-and-death crisis.”
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Jim Thomas ✉
Jim Thomas is a writer based in Indiana. He holds a bachelor's degree in Political Science, a law degree from U.I.C. Law School, and has practiced law for more than 20 years.
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