Priorities in the Capital: It Costs Four Times More to Deploy Troops Than to House the Homeless

Washington, D.C. — When it comes to how America treats its most vulnerable, the numbers don’t lie — they indict.

The Trump administration’s decision to deploy the National Guard to sweep encampments of unhoused people in the nation’s capital comes with a daily price tag of more than $1 million, according to a new analysis by the National Priorities Project. With roughly 2,091 Guard members on site, each costing about $530 per day, the bill adds up fast.

Here’s the catch: running public housing for every single unhoused person in D.C. — about 5,600 people — costs only $255,166 a day. That means militarizing homelessness is over four times more expensive than actually providing housing.

Stretch the deployment over three months, and taxpayers will spend more than it would cost to operate housing for the city’s unhoused for an entire year.

What does this money actually buy?

• Encampment raids and sweeps: People’s tents, possessions, and survival supplies tossed out under armed supervision.

• Displacement, not shelter: Many are funneled into overcrowded shelters or left to scatter, often ending up in worse conditions than before.

• A chilling message: Homelessness is being treated as a crime scene rather than a social crisis.

Advocates point out that stable housing reduces strain on hospitals, lowers crime, and improves public health outcomes — all while costing less. Instead, public funds are being funneled into optics and intimidation.

This isn’t just a D.C. story. It’s a test case for how leaders across the country may handle poverty: with soldiers and tear gas instead of housing and care. The comparison is blunt: we’re choosing tanks over roofs, rifles over rent checks.

For every dollar spent on this deployment, four could have been spent to house someone. And yet the administration has doubled down on force over solutions, prioritizing appearance over dignity.

The math is simple, the cruelty is not:

• $1,000,000+ per day — National Guard occupation.

• $255,166 per day — public housing for everyone without a home in D.C.

If the goal were to end homelessness, the money is there. The political will is not.

Until that changes, the nation’s capital will remain a symbol of skewed priorities — where the cost of criminalizing poverty is four times higher than the cost of solving it.