1. Summary of Executive Order
On July 24, 2025, the White House issued an Executive Order titled “Ending Crime and Disorder on America’s Streets.” The order mandates that federal grants be prioritized for states and municipalities that enforce bans on open air drug use, urban camping, loitering, and squatting. It encourages the expansion of civil commitment, calls for the removal of judicial restrictions on involuntary institutionalization, and diverts funding away from evidence-based models like harm reduction and Housing First. The order further authorizes the collection and sharing of personal health and behavioral data with law enforcement and demands state level reporting of compliance with these directives.
Full text of the Executive Order: https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/07/ending-crime-and-disorder-on-americas-streets
2. Harms to Vulnerable Populations
a. People with Mental Illness and Substance Use Conditions
This order dramatically increases the risk of forced institutionalization for people struggling with mental health or substance use. It erodes personal autonomy and ignores the root causes of these conditions, opting instead to detain and contain individuals through systems that have historically failed our communities. The imposition of coercive treatment will cause people to fear seeking care and deepen the cycle of mistrust and disengagement from mental health services.
b. Veterans
Veterans with complex mental health needs, such as PTSD or substance use disorders, are at heightened risk under this order. Instead of receiving trauma-informed, culturally competent care, they are now vulnerable to institutionalization and criminalization, further compounding the stressors they carry from their military service.
c. Black Communities and Communities of Color
Black communities have long been disproportionately affected by over policing and under-resourced mental health care. This order reactivates vagrancy and loitering policies that have historically targeted Black people and uses them as a gateway to surveillance, profiling, and institutional control. It criminalizes poverty, illness, and existence in public spaces, compounding systemic harms we continue to fight against.
d. LGBTQIA+ Individuals
This Executive Order opens the door for discriminatory treatment against LGBTQIA+ individuals under the guise of "values-based" or "faith-based" approaches. Without explicit protections for affirming care, states and institutions could deny services that validate LGBTQIA+ identities, or worse, force individuals into harmful practices like conversion therapy or spiritually coercive programs that undermine their personhood and safety.
e. The Use of “Faith-Based” Treatment Models
The order promotes and incentivizes faith-based programming as a preferred method of treatment. While faith can be a meaningful source of healing for some, this mandate is deeply concerning for a pluralistic society. Replacing or prioritizing spiritual intervention over licensed clinical care risks retraumatizing individuals, particularly those who have been harmed by religious institutions or teachings. Mental health care should be rooted in evidence-based practice, client autonomy, and cultural humility, not dogma.
3. Impact on Clinicians and the Counseling Profession
- Ethical violations: This Executive Order conflicts with core counseling values such as client self-determination, informed consent, and nonmaleficence. It encourages coercive models that directly undermine the therapeutic alliance and create adversarial dynamics between providers and clients.
- Funding and payment barriers: Under this order, funding is funneled away from affirming, evidence-based, community-centered models toward institutional and faith-based programs. This affects clinicians who provide inclusive, culturally responsive, and trauma-informed care. Providers offering affirming therapy to LGBTQIA+ clients, grief support, or wellness services may no longer qualify for federal reimbursements or state contracts under the new guidelines.
- Mandatory reporting and surveillance: The order requires states to report compliance to the federal government, including the mental health status of individuals impacted by enforcement efforts. This violates privacy rights and turns clinicians into data collection agents for systems that may not prioritize client well-being.
- Loss of coverage for wellness services: In a troubling move, the order eliminates coverage for mental health services deemed “non-essential,” such as grief counseling, preventive wellness support, and mental health maintenance for individuals who are considered “well.” This strips access to care for people who are actively working to maintain their health and reinforces a reactive system that only steps in when people are in crisis. It penalizes wellness and discourages long-term emotional health.
4. Broader Consequences for Mental Health and Public Health
This Executive Order signals a return to outdated, punitive models of care that were abandoned for their ineffectiveness and inhumanity. It criminalizes symptoms of mental illness and addiction instead of addressing their causes, and it disproportionately targets marginalized communities. The Order fails to invest in housing, trauma recovery, wraparound services, or access to culturally competent clinicians.
Instead, it diverts funding to facilities and systems that detain and disempower people in the name of public order. Its embrace of forced treatment, surveillance, and coercion destabilizes the progress made in trauma informed, strengths based, and client centered care. The devaluation of services like grief counseling and LGBTQIA+ affirming care further cements the message that some people’s suffering is unworthy of support.
5. Our Call to Action
- We vehemently oppose this Executive Order. NABC stands firmly against policies that criminalize mental illness, addiction, and homelessness. We call on federal and state leaders to rescind and resist its implementation.
- We demand investment in real solutions, including affordable housing, trauma-responsive care, inclusive and affirming mental health services, and a well-funded public health infrastructure.
- We urge clinicians and professional associations to raise their voices, defend client rights, and speak out against policies that violate ethical obligations and endanger vulnerable populations.
- We call on licensing boards, policymakers, and healthcare systems to protect the integrity of the counseling profession by rejecting coerced treatment, faith-mandated care models, and the dismantling of community-based mental health supports.
6. Closing Statement
As Black counselors, clinicians, educators, and advocates, we cannot stay silent in the face of policies that dehumanize our communities and threaten the well-being of those we are called to serve. This Executive Order is not about safety; it is about control. It is not about health; it is about punishment. And it is not about care, it is about containment.
We will continue to fight for an inclusive counseling profession, affirming, evidence-based, and rooted in justice. We stand with our clients, our colleagues, and our communities in demanding mental health care that heals, not harms.
In solidarity,
The National Association of Black Counselors (NABC)
