For some 15 years, David Brown had made a home in Washington Circle, living in a tent with a handful of others in an encampment. On Friday, that home was destroyed — his tent, clothing and other possessions were tossed into a dumpster by police officers carrying out President Trump’s crackdown on some of the city’s most powerless residents.

Left with a fraction of his things, Mr. Brown and his 6-month-old puppy, Molly, moved a block away and slept outside the Foggy Bottom subway station. Sitting in a wheelchair outside the station on Saturday, he was still baffled at what was happening. “Why is he doing this, for no reason?” he asked of Mr. Trump.

The clearing of homeless people off the streets of Washington, part of the president’s marshaling of federal forces on the nation’s capital, has been more scattered than sweeping, and it is unclear how many of the estimated 900 people who sleep on the city’s streets have been affected.

But what emerged over the weekend were more stories like Mr. Brown’s. Many people are on the move, seeing their lives uprooted and their futures become even more precarious, whether as a result of force or out of fear.

Some have moved into shelters. Others have secured temporary hotel rooms with the help of nonprofit groups. Some have taken buses to surrounding areas, or are using donated metro cards to ride the subways back and forth at night. Still others have simply moved to another spot on the streets.

David Beatty, who was removed from an encampment between the Kennedy Center and the U.S. Institute for Peace, said he spent the first night after being cleared out behind bushes near the Foggy Bottom subway station. But without his tent or foam mat, he was getting little sleep. His other belongings had been put into storage, thanks to the Georgetown Ministry Center — but he kept his broom and dustpan, which he carried with him as he walked around the city during the day, sweeping up cigarette butts and litter.