On July 24, President Donald Trump issued an executive order to eliminate endemic vagrancy, disorderly behavior, sudden confrontations, and violent attacks on the streets of our cities by shifting homeless individuals into long-term institutional settings through the use of civil commitment.
Section 2 of the order states that, “The Attorney General, in consultation with the Secretary of Health and Human Services, shall take appropriate action to: (i) seek, in appropriate cases, the reversal of Federal or State judicial precedents and the termination of consent decrees that impede the United States’ policy of encouraging civil commitment of individuals with mental illness…”
The executive order contains numerous false and misleading assertions about people who are unhoused and may be experiencing mental health conditions or substance-use disorders. I encourage everyone to read the statements of the National Disability Rights Network (NDRN), and the National Association for Mental Illness (NAMI Statement on Executive Order Targeting Homelessness and Criminalizing Mental Illness | National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI)). The NDRN reminds us that “Americans have due process protections before the government can take away their liberty and confine them in a psychiatric hospital … Protections against inappropriate commitment are critical.”
While NAMI declares that “Mental illness is not a crime, and people with mental illness deserve to be treated as human beings, with dignity and respect. … We should be investing in supportive housing and other wrap-around services.”
America’s streets are the domain of local and state governments. Our nation is a federal system wherein powers not specifically given to the federal government or denied to the states by the Constitution are retained by the states. Civil commitment is not one of the few powers given to the federal government and civil commitment of individuals with mental illness is not the policy of the State of Connecticut.
Section 17a-498 of the Connecticut General Statutes specifies the due process for civil commitment and the rights of individuals including the right to counsel, the right to a hearing, and the right to a hearing annually thereafter if “the court finds by clear and convincing evidence that the respondent has psychiatric disabilities and is dangerous to himself or herself or others or gravely disabled, [and makes] an order for his or her commitment, considering whether or not a less restrictive placement is available.”
The federal government has no authority to reverse state statutes or state judicial precedents. In the words of Roger Sherman, Connecticut “shall forever be and remain a free, sovereign and independent State … under the sole authority of the People thereof, independent of any King or Prince whatever.”
We must resist federal interference in our work to support the people who are unhoused, the people who are experiencing mental health conditions, and the people with substance use disorders here in Connecticut.
Walter Glomb lives in Vernon.