{"id":16757,"date":"2021-04-30T09:00:57","date_gmt":"2021-04-30T13:00:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wordpress-537697-2997182.cloudwaysapps.com\/?p=16757"},"modified":"2022-10-09T06:25:48","modified_gmt":"2022-10-09T10:25:48","slug":"as-austin-voters-weigh-camping-ban-proposition-texas-lawmakers-consider-bills-to-prohibit-homeless-encampments-statewide","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wordpress-537697-2997182.cloudwaysapps.com\/as-austin-voters-weigh-camping-ban-proposition-texas-lawmakers-consider-bills-to-prohibit-homeless-encampments-statewide\/","title":{"rendered":"As Austin Voters Weigh Camping Ban Proposition, Texas Lawmakers Consider Bills to Prohibit Homeless Encampments Statewide"},"content":{"rendered":"
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This article was first published at Texastribune.org<\/a>:<\/em><\/p>\n

If the Legislation Is Approved and Signed by the Governor, Cities Could Lose State Grant Money for Failing to Enforce a New Statewide Encampment Ban<\/h2>\n

The Texas Legislature is considering bills that would ban homeless encampments statewide, almost two years after the city of Austin decided to lift a similar local ban \u2014 a move that critics say triggered the proliferation of tent cities throughout Austin.<\/p>\n

If lawmakers approve the legislation and Gov.\u00a0Greg Abbott\u00a0signs it into law, it would become the latest instance of the Republican-led state government overruling local ordinances. State lawmakers also are\u00a0trying to stop cities from decreasing police funding<\/a>\u00a0after the \u201cdefund the police\u201d movement sparked by last year\u2019s national protests against police brutality.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe’ve seen a huge increase in not only the number of homeless living under bridges or on the streets, but also the rise in crime,\u201d said state Rep.\u00a0Giovanni Capriglione, R-Southlake, the author of\u00a0House Bill 1925<\/a>. \u201cAnd really the difference has been that, at least in this case, this city has overturned their own ban.\u201d<\/p>\n

Austin\u2019s City Council decided to lift the ban on public encampments in certain areas in July 2019, arguing that the policy had led to citations for people experiencing homelessness and hurting their ability to find housing. The move was quickly criticized by Abbott, who promised to take action against Austin and\u00a0in his budget priority list<\/a>\u00a0asked the Legislature to withhold state grant money from cities that don\u2019t ban such encampments.<\/p>\n

The proposed bills \u2014 HB 1925 and its companion, Senate Bill 987 \u2014 would make camping in an unapproved public place a Class C misdemeanor, punishable by a fine of up to $500.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe as a state act to make sure that our public spaces are safe and that our homeless population is taken care of. The situation has simply gotten out of control,\u201d state Sen.\u00a0Dawn Buckingham, R-Lakeway, said during a hearing for SB 987, which she authored.<\/p>\n

The House bill was debated\u00a0<\/strong>on the floor Monday, and Democrats attempted to amend the bill to decrease the penalties against\u00a0<\/strong>people experiencing homelessness. After state Rep.\u00a0Joe Deshotel, D-Beaumont, raised a point of order claiming\u00a0<\/strong>a discrepancy in the bill’s witness list while in committee, it was sent back to the Urban Affairs Committee; it’s expected to receive a new hearing soon.<\/p>\n

During Monday’s floor debate, some Democratic legislators criticized the bills, saying that they would criminalize people experiencing homelessness.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat I\u2019m concerned about is folks that can\u2019t pay these fines and they are caught in the system and they get deeper and deeper in the hole,\u201d state Rep.\u00a0Barbara Gervin-Hawkins, D-San Antonio, said during debate on the House floor Monday. \u201c[It\u2019s a] fine that they can\u2019t pay, we are setting people up for failure.\u201d<\/p>\n

State Rep.\u00a0Jasmine Crockett, D-Dallas, said the bill would disproportionately impact Black Texans because they are more likely to experience homelessness than white Texans.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe should not criminalize those who can not afford a place to stay,\u201d Crockett said. \u201cWhat we\u2019ve seen specifically here in the state of Texas is that minorities are criminalized at a lot higher rate.\u201d<\/p>\n

Austin Voters to Decide on Camping Ban<\/h3>\n

Although the visibility of homeless encampments has increased in Austin in recent years, both the Dallas and Houston areas have more people living in the streets,\u00a0according to 2020 data<\/a>. Some Austin residents have complained that allowing the encampments on public property \u2014 many are beneath overpasses or next to major roads \u2014 has created health and safety problems.<\/p>\n

Other residents and most advocates for people experiencing homelessness said lifting the ban on encampments has made it easier to offer services to people experiencing homelessness and helped them avoid fines that they frequently can\u2019t pay.<\/p>\n

The city\u2019s residents will be able to decide on the matter Saturday, after the group Save Austin Now managed to get more than 24,000 signatures to put a proposition on the ballot to reinstate the camping ban. Early voting began April 19 on Proposition B, which would reinstate not only the camping ban, but also penalties for panhandling, sitting and lying in public areas.<\/p>\n

The Legislature could make that vote moot by imposing an encampment ban throughout Texas.<\/p>\n

Save Austin Now\u2019s co-founder, Cleo Petricek \u2014\u00a0<\/strong>a Democrat who has said the group has bipartisan support \u2014 said during the committee hearing on the Senate bill that she has heard many complaints about the encampments being safety and health risks, especially in Hispanic neighborhoods.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is these communities that have shouldered most of the destruction to their neighborhoods, parks, schools, playgrounds from unregulated homeless encampments, compared to rich parts of Austin,\u201d Petricek told the committee members.<\/p>\n

Austin Mayor Steve Adler has criticized both the city proposition and the Senate and House bills.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll SB 987 does is impose possible jail and fines for those without homes. At best, it will force those without shelter to hide, and that\u2019s even less safe,\u201d Adler said in a written statement. \u201cThis bill, like Proposition B, offers no help and no solution. We can\u2019t go back to the failed policies of the past that we know don\u2019t work, like threatening jail and fines to make people move \u2014 when there\u2019s nowhere for those people to move to.\u201d<\/p>\n

Homeless advocates agreed that the bill won\u2019t help efforts to house people experiencing homelessness.<\/p>\n

\u201cBanning people from sleeping or sitting down in public won\u2019t help them find housing; it\u2019ll just further ostracize them from our community because they can\u2019t afford rent,\u201d Matthew Mollica, executive editor at Austin\u2019s Ending Community Homelessness Coalition, said in his written statement to the Senate Committee on Local Government. \u201cEvidence shows that, far from ending anyone\u2019s homelessness, criminalizing basic human functions like sleeping increases the trauma associated with experiencing homelessness and makes it harder for someone to end their homelessness.\u201d<\/p>\n

‘It Ties Their Hands’<\/h3>\n

Homeless service providers in other Texas cities say they also are worried about how a state law banning encampments could play out. Regulations and enforcement related to camping in public places vary greatly among cities. Some, like Austin, don\u2019t have a universal ban, but camping is not allowed in places like public parks. Others, like Dallas, don\u2019t have a ban but will remove encampments if there are safety concerns.<\/p>\n

In Houston, a city that has been touted as a national model for how to handle the homelessness crisis, tents and makeshift structures are banned, but the city does removals only when there is available housing for the people involved. Mike Nichols, CEO and president of the Coalition for the Homeless in that city, told lawmakers that he opposed the bills they\u2019re considering.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have to have collaboration with the police, with the city, with the county. \u2026 This bill will kill our collaboration because it ties their hands,\u201d Nichols said in the Senate committee hearing.<\/p>\n

In Brown County, Linda Heitman, executive director of Brown County Home Solutions, said she has a similar worry.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve worked very hard to foster a good relation between the police and the homeless population. If the police are forced to do the enforcement and ticket people, that would totally undo what we\u2019ve done,\u201d Heitman said in an interview. \u201cIf the police are out there trying to get them to go to a shelter, they would be afraid that they would be taken to jail.\u201d<\/p>\n

Eric Samuels, president and CEO of the Texas Homeless Network, is also concerned about lawmakers\u2019 threat to cut state funds to cities, even though the state\u2019s contributions to homeless solutions are considerably smaller than what the federal government and many local governments provide.<\/p>\n

\u201cAny cut in that funding would be substantial, and it would really weaken our efforts to end homelessness,\u201d Samuels said. \u201cAnd if a community says that we’re not going to put a ban on camping in public, then I think we need to respect what that local community has decided.\u201d<\/p>\n

He called the proposed statewide encampment ban \u201cthe stick method \u2014 all it does is end up pushing people further in the shadows, pushing people behind the tree line, and that does not serve to get more people into services.\u201d<\/p>\n

Camping bans have led to court battles across the country. In February, the city of Boise, Idaho,\u00a0had to commit $1.3 million for homelessness<\/a> as part of a settlement in a decade-long case that six people experiencing homelessness filed against the city. The American Civil Liberties Union of Texas sued the city of Houston in 2017 for its encampment ban, but the lawsuit was withdrawn in 2019.<\/p>\n

Nick Hudson, policy and advocacy strategist with the ACLU of Texas, said the group is \u201cclosely watching\u201d what happens with the legislation.<\/p>\n

\u201cCriminalizing Texans who are trying to meet their basic needs is unconstitutional. Under the Eighth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, it is cruel and unusual to punish someone for status they cannot control, such as experiencing homelessness,\u201d Hudson said. \u201cCourts have found that it is unconstitutional to criminalize someone for sleeping or camping outside when they have no place else to go.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This article was first published at Texastribune.org: If the Legislation Is Approved and Signed by the Governor, Cities Could Lose State Grant Money for Failing to Enforce a New Statewide Encampment Ban The Texas Legislature is considering bills that would … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21,"featured_media":16758,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[248,295],"tags":[953,12496,16321,253,832,515,12470,508,338],"coauthors":[12448],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress-537697-2997182.cloudwaysapps.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16757"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress-537697-2997182.cloudwaysapps.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress-537697-2997182.cloudwaysapps.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress-537697-2997182.cloudwaysapps.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/21"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress-537697-2997182.cloudwaysapps.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16757"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress-537697-2997182.cloudwaysapps.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16757\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19217,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress-537697-2997182.cloudwaysapps.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16757\/revisions\/19217"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress-537697-2997182.cloudwaysapps.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16758"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress-537697-2997182.cloudwaysapps.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16757"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress-537697-2997182.cloudwaysapps.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16757"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress-537697-2997182.cloudwaysapps.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16757"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress-537697-2997182.cloudwaysapps.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=16757"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}