How a Billionaire Shaped Trump’s Homelessness Policy
As Republicans have embraced tough measures to clear the streets, no group has led the way more than the Cicero Institute, founded by the venture capitalist Joe Lonsdale.
A team from the Cicero Institute, an upstart think tank, flew to Indiana this year to help make it a crime for homeless people to sleep on the street.
It was their third attempt. Even in the conservative state, previous efforts to ban street camping had failed. Catholic leaders said the measure would hurt the poor, and sheriffs had warned that arrests would crowd the jails. “We’re Hoosiers—we’re better than that,” a Republican state senator, Ron Alting, said last year, urging a more caring approach.
But much had changed since the group, founded by Joe Lonsdale, a billionaire ally of President Trump’s, had made its initial efforts. Mr. Trump had issued an executive order on homelessness that so fully reflected Cicero’s agenda it was hard to tell where the group stopped and White House policy began. The sponsor of the Indiana law was fresh from a Cicero conference, Cicero lobbyists worked the bill, and three Cicero analysts testified that the threat of arrests would push homeless people into treatment for mental illness or addiction.
The ban passed just before the legislature adjourned.
Stay Informed
Sign up to receive updates about our fight for policies at the state level that restore liberty through transparency and accountability in American governance.