President Donald Trump wants cities and states to force homeless people with mental illness and addiction into treatment facilities. To make that happen, he signed an executive order this summer directing federal agencies to dramatically shift how they fund programs for homeless people.

It’s a policy change that upends the approach New York has taken to housing homeless people for years: offering stable housing without requiring people to meet sobriety rules or agree to mental health treatment first.

New York City providers say this policy, known as housing first, has succeeded. They say it’s the reason the city effectively ended chronic homelessness among veterans and has kept thousands of formerly homeless people off the streets. But homeless advocates worry that if they persist with h

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