Advertisement

Drudge Retort: The Other Side of the News
Thursday, August 28, 2025

Last week, when Trump federalized Washington, DC's police force and deployed the National Guard to occupy its streets, one of his main orders was to "end vagrancy" by destroying homeless encampments and arresting and forcibly relocating the people taking shelter there. But according to an investigation published on Wednesday by Hanna Homestead of the National Priorities Project, in collaboration with The Intercept, deploying the National Guard and "getting rid of the slums" is costing far more than it would cost to simply provide housing to every homeless person in the city.

More

Alternate links: Google News | Twitter

Earlier this month, DC officials cleared tents along the routes the president frequents.

[image or embed]

-- Washingtonian (@washingtonian.com) Aug 27, 2025 at 3:55 PM

Comments

Admin's note: Participants in this discussion must follow the site's moderation policy. Profanity will be filtered. Abusive conduct is not allowed.

It's always a matter of choice.

The US could end homelessness and hunger and fund education and health care but instead it chooses war, secret police agencies and hate.

Billionaires are the reason why we cannot accomplish these goals.

#1 | Posted by Nixon at 2025-08-26 10:45 AM | Reply | Newsworthy 4

With the way they're spending to achieve nothing, we'll be in Venezuela level inflation before we know it.

#2 | Posted by jpw at 2025-08-26 11:29 AM | Reply

FYI: drudge.com

#3 | Posted by C0RI0LANUS at 2025-08-26 01:16 PM | Reply | Funny: 1

When the big show of authoritarian use of military force is over and the troops leave (as they will have to eventually) what's to prevent the homeless from just coming back?

#4 | Posted by donnerboy at 2025-08-28 12:40 PM | Reply

Just like typical liberals, you don't care about the people, just the money. Trump deployed them to contain crime as the primary, and the secondary to do things to prevent crime from getting to bad levels again...like doing something about the homeless. If all he did was try to take care of the homeless, the crime would still continue for however long it would take to do something about them, not to mention that not all of the crime is due to the homeless so that effort would end up doing very little.

#5 | Posted by humtake at 2025-08-28 01:20 PM | Reply

@#4 ... When the big show of authoritarian use of military force is over and the troops leave (as they will have to eventually) what's to prevent the homeless from just coming back? ...

Asked from a different view ...

Why is Pres Trump trying to reduce the symptom instead of trying to solve the underlying problem?

#6 | Posted by LampLighter at 2025-08-28 01:28 PM | Reply

"Billionaires are the reason why we cannot accomplish these goals."

They couldn't do any of the things they have done and will continue to do without the "Useful Idiots" a/k/a theMAGAcult members.

#7 | Posted by danni at 2025-08-28 01:35 PM | Reply

#4,

Assuming troops will be sent home before Trump leaves office one way or the other is probably wishful thinking.

If this follows the playbook the administration seems to want to follow concentration camps will prevent them from coming back.

#8 | Posted by qcp at 2025-08-28 01:38 PM | Reply

"If it once became general, wealth would confer no distinction".

-Orwell

#9 | Posted by lee_the_agent at 2025-08-28 01:40 PM | Reply

The rich won't spend money on the poor. If they did, how would the rich have any power?

#10 | Posted by lee_the_agent at 2025-08-28 01:42 PM | Reply

Assuming troops will be sent home before Trump leaves office one way or the other is probably wishful thinking.

Not really "assuming " but keeping troops in DC forever seems problematic. Even keeping them there for 3 years is going to be difficult to justify the costs alone. It's already been determined that it would have been cheaper to house the homeless then support a military occupation.

3 years is a long time.

Pretty sure we will all be OBE by then.

(Overcome By Events)

#11 | Posted by donnerboy at 2025-08-28 01:44 PM | Reply

Not really "assuming " but keeping troops in DC forever seems problematic.

He also wants to occupy Baltimore and Chicago.

#12 | Posted by REDIAL at 2025-08-28 01:53 PM | Reply

3 years is a long time.

Three years may just be the prelude.

And to whom does Trump have to justify anything currently?

#13 | Posted by qcp at 2025-08-28 01:58 PM | Reply

@#12

It looks like Pres Trump is trying to "normalize" the use of the military against Americans, especially those who live in Democrat-leaning areas.

Will Pres Trump have the military stationed around blue-state voting sites in 2026 to to intimidate voters in those areas?

#14 | Posted by LampLighter at 2025-08-28 01:59 PM | Reply

Doubtful as to cost cheaper to house the homeless, as who is going to pay the cost of building/buying housing in that expensive area, ongoing utilities bills, high insurance for damages if any insurance would insure housing for such individuals, etc.

#15 | Posted by MSgt at 2025-08-28 02:21 PM | Reply

From the article: Governors from six US states have sent troops to Washington to help Trump's effort, swelling the ranks to nearly 2,100 who will soon be on patrol.

According to previous reporting, National Guard deployments cost the US government $530 per guard member each day. Using that figure, Homestead estimated that it would cost just over $1.1 million.

She added that "the number of troops will likely continue to grow. And with no deadline for the DC deployment, those costs could add up for months or even years."

According to the most recent data from the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), there are about 5,600 people experiencing either sheltered and unsheltered homelessness in DC on a given night. Operating an affordable housing unit for each one of them, the data shows, costs about $45.44 per person, per day, on average in DC.

Providing affordable housing to every homeless person in DC would cost an estimated $255,166, which is 4.3 times less than the cost of Trump's military deployment.

#16 | Posted by qcp at 2025-08-28 02:27 PM | Reply

From a link in the cited article ...

FACT SHEET: Taxpayer Trade Offs: D.C. Occupation vs. Public Housing
ips-dc.org

... As of this writing (August 21, 2025), there are more than 2,000 National Guard troops deployed in D.C., costing over a million dollars per day.

In all but two states, the daily cost of the D.C. troop deployment is greater than the daily cost of operating public housing for all unhoused people in the state.

In most cases, the disparity is many times greater. For example, the daily expense of deploying troops to D.C. is 4.3 times greater than the daily cost of operating public housing for D.C's entire unhoused population. ...


Per-state table, and references cited.


#17 | Posted by LampLighter at 2025-08-28 02:28 PM | Reply

Why is Pres Trump trying to reduce the symptom instead of trying to solve the underlying problem?

Lewzer doesn't care about homeless people. He just doesn't want to see them from his motorcade when he's off to shovel more taxpayer money into his golf resort.

#18 | Posted by REDIAL at 2025-08-28 02:38 PM | Reply

-Two U.S. officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said it cost about $530 per Guard member, per day to be deployed.

maybe we could verify that cost if we cared enough.

#19 | Posted by eberly at 2025-08-28 02:38 PM | Reply

Trump is a sadist. He wants to see them drag some unfortunate black or Hispanic homeless guy to the middle of the street and beat the crap out of him.

#20 | Posted by TenMile at 2025-08-28 05:32 PM | Reply

The national guard has been deployed in DC so it becomes normalized.

So when Trump announces he's canceling the midterms, they'll already be in place to fend off protesters.

It's why he's nullified the first Amendment's protection to burn the American flag, so should anyone protest what America is becoming, a fascist nation, he can arrest them.

Fascism has taken over the Republican Party and it's trying its best to take over the rest of America.

"Western liberalism is obsolete."
-Vladimir Putin.

www.bbc.com

Take five minutes to read that article. It's from 2019, but you wouldn't know it since our very own Deplorable MAGA contributors are saying the same things Putin did, verbatim.

#21 | Posted by ClownShack at 2025-08-28 05:43 PM | Reply

The following HTML tags are allowed in comments: a href, b, i, p, br, ul, ol, li and blockquote. Others will be stripped out. Participants in this discussion must follow the site's moderation policy. Profanity will be filtered. Abusive conduct is not allowed.

Anyone can join this site and make comments. To post this comment, you must sign it with your Drudge Retort username. If you can't remember your username or password, use the lost password form to request it.
Username:
Password:

Home | Breaking News | Comments | User Blogs | Stats | Back Page | RSS Feed | RSS Spec | DMCA Compliance | Privacy

Drudge Retort