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Crews here removed a homeless camp near the Lincoln Memorial today. President Trump has demanded that people living on the streets and in parks be removed immediately as part of what he describes as an effort to make the nation's capital safer and more beautiful. As NPR's Brian Mann reports, many people without housing say they have nowhere to go.
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BRIAN MANN, BYLINE: Mid-morning city crews - including a dump truck and a small bulldozer - rumbled into a grassy park in downtown Washington, hauling away tents and other belongings. David Beatty, a bearded man in his 60s, who's lived in a tent here for months, says he has no idea where he'll go next.
DAVID BEATTY: I don't know.
MANN: Beatty says homeless camps like this would make a lot of people, including President Trump, uncomfortable. But he says he never expected to see Americans without housing purged from the city's streets.
BEATTY: Just feels wrong to me. The idea that we're poor makes him uncomfortable, and they don't want to be reminded that poor people exist.
MANN: During a press conference this week at the White House, the president lumped people like Beatty, who are unhoused, with criminals and gang members. Trump said they all have to go.
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PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: There are many places that they can go. And we're going to help them as much as you can help. But they'll not be allowed to turn our capital into a wasteland.
MANN: Advocates and experts on homelessness say there are roughly 900 people living on the streets of the nation's capital on any given night. And they say there aren't enough good places for most of them to go. Dana White is with a group called Miriam's Kitchen that works to end chronic homelessness in Washington.
DANA WHITE: We're simply moving the problem around. We're not really providing a solution to folks' homelessness. D.C. shelter capacity is often very limited. Ultimately, these people have no stable, permanent place to go, so we're just shuffling them from one place to another.
MANN: Activists from Miriam's Kitchen and other groups showed up here to help people break down their tents, offering guidance, trying to move as many as possible into shelters. As the camp is taken apart, Christian Watkins, a Methodist minister from a local church, holds a sign with a verse from scripture.
CHRISTIAN WATKINS: Mark 8:36 - what does it profit a man to gain the whole world but to lose his soul? The soul of America is lost because of the fact that this is allowed to happen.
MANN: What do you say to people who say, look, we want to have beautiful parks, we want to have a city that looks stable and safe and comfortable?
WATKINS: We do have a beautiful city. But to turn a blind eye to the systemic problems that not only this district but also the country has in not caring for the least of these, that's the real problem.
MANN: As this ragged, fragile community is dismantled, many of the people living here appear frightened and confused. Jessy Wall is a young man who describes himself as gay. As he packs his belongings into garbage bags, Wall says he doesn't feel safe in shelters.
JESSY WALL: No, I don't want to be there. Shelters are not the best option because they cram people in there, and you're not always sure of who is who.
MANN: A short walk away, I meet George Morgan, who's 65 and lives with his dog Blue.
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MANN: He describes himself as a devout Christian who prays regularly for President Trump. He doesn't know where he and Blue will sleep tonight.
GEORGE MORGAN: There are some hotels that are pet-friendly. Maybe the president put me up in a hotel.
MANN: Donald Trump might put you up in a hotel?
MORGAN: The president, yeah. That's our president, correct?
MANN: But White House officials say Morgan and the others living here must leave D.C. or find their way into shelters immediately, or they'll be punished with fines or jail time.
Brian Mann, NPR News, Washington. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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