Report: Trump Officials Consider Moving L.A’s Homeless to FAA Facility

President Donald Trump may be considering moving homeless people in Los Angeles to an unnamed Federal Aviation Adminstration (FAA) facility, according to a report Wednesday by the Washington Post

The Post reported earlier this week that President Trump could follow through on warnings that he will use his federal authority to intervene in California’s homeless problem, which has spread beyond the familiar districts of Skid Row in L.A. and the Tenderloin in San Francisco to become a more widespread problem — and a major public health hazard.

As Breitbart News noted on Tuesday:

The president could invoke the National Emergencies Act of 1976 to declare an emergency, and could also invoke the Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act of 1988, which allows a president to override state authorities and bring in the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) if “he [the president] determines that an emergency exists for which the primary responsibility for response rests with the United States because the emergency involves a subject area for which, under the Constitution or laws of the United States, the United States exercises exclusive or preeminent responsibility and authority.”

On Wednesday, the Post added:

A team of Trump administration officials toured a California facility once used by the Federal Aviation Administration this week as they searched for a potential site to relocate homeless people, according to three government officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the private tour.

…

The FAA facility toured by administration officials is located in or near Los Angeles, but its precise name or whereabouts — or whether it is a current or former government facility — were not immediately known.

The goal of relocating homeless people would be to make cities cleaner and safer, while providing desperately poor (and often mentally ill) people with food and medical care.

The Post added that while President Donald Trump was considering making an announcement about homelessness during a trip to California next Tuesday and Wednesday, the idea that the administration was about to start rounding up homeless people and moving them to government camps was premature.

Earlier this year, Gov. Gavin Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti pushed back against Trump’s idea, saying he should send more money to the state rather than cutting welfare benefits to undocumented aliens.

However, amidst public outcry — and the threat of epidemics like typhus (which has happened) and bubonic plague (which may happen) —the president may find public support for federal intervention, including in California itself.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News. He earned an A.B. in Social Studies and Environmental Science and Public Policy from Harvard College, and a J.D. from Harvard Law School. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. He is also the co-author of How Trump Won: The Inside Story of a Revolution, which is available from Regnery. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.