Advocates fear Texas lawmakers are about to worsen the state’s homelessness crisis

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DALLAS — As thousands of Texans sleep on the streets, Republicans in the Texas Legislature have pushed proposals that advocates worry will only worsen the state’s homelessness crisis.

GOP lawmakers have advanced bills to force cities to beef up their enforcement of a statewide ban on homeless encampments and prevent organizations that provide services to the homeless from setting up shop near schools. They’ve also pushed legislation that housing advocates fear will accelerate evictions, potentially driving up homelessness as a result.

As the state’s housing costs rose in recent years, so did the number of people experiencing homelessness. Nearly 28,000 Texans did not have a permanent roof over their heads last year, according to federal estimates — about an 8% increase from the year before the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Of those, more than 12,000 were unsheltered — meaning they lived outside, in their cars or in other places not fit for human habitation.

Homeless advocates say proposals that have gained traction in the Legislature so far do little if anything to address the root causes of the state’s homelessness crisis — chiefly its shortage of affordable homes — and would make it harder for unhoused people to get out of homelessness.

“A lot of legislators feel like the cities aren’t doing their job,” said Eric Samuels, who heads the Texas Homeless Network. “The presumption is they’re not already working to prevent and end homelessness, which is far from the case.”

Chief among those proposals is a stiffening of the state’s ban on homeless encampments. Gov. Greg Abbott signed the ban into law four years ago — and the U.S. Supreme Court effectively upheld it last year. But homeless encampments remain visible, driving frustration among lawmakers.

Senate Bill 241 — authored by state Sen. Pete Flores, a Pleasanton Republican — aims to compel localities to show stricter enforcement of the ban. Under the bill, cities and counties would have to set up a process to allow residents to file formal complaints if they suspect a violation of the camping ban. If a city or county doesn’t resolve that complaint within 90 days, the state attorney general could declare it a “violating local entity.” The state would then step in to resolve the complaint and recoup the costs of clearing encampments from that city or county’s sales taxes.

“It’s already against the law,” Flores said during a March committee hearing. “They’re just not enforcing it.”

The bill cleared the Senate earlier this month by a 22-8 vote, largely along partisan lines, and awaits a committee hearing in the House.

Much of lawmakers’ ire has been directed at Austin. City leaders there relaxed restrictions on public encampments in 2019 — and an uptick in the number of people experiencing street homelessness prompted Austin voters to reinstate the city’s camping ban. State lawmakers quickly followed enacting a statewide ban, which makes sleeping outside or camping on public property a misdemeanor punishable by up to a $500 fine.

Since 2021, Austin has issued nearly 1,300 citations for violations of the camping ban and related violations, city data show.

As encampments remain visible and the city fields hundreds of complaints a month related to homelessness, there’s frustration and hunger for greater enforcement of the ban.

“The simple fact is that (the camping ban) is not being enforced in the city of Austin,” said Matt Mackowiak, who co-founded the group Save Austin Now, which put the city’s camping ban on the ballot in 2021. “Anyone that spends more than 30 minutes in Austin knows that and sees that.”

Ticketing people experiencing homelessness for camping violations is counterproductive, homeless service providers and advocates have long argued. If someone can’t afford to pay for housing, they likely can’t afford a $500 fine. Fining them can make it more difficult to escape homelessness — especially if they don’t show up for their court hearing, prompting arrest warrants and creating criminal histories that can make housing and employment nearly unobtainable. In Austin, the ban effectively forced people experiencing homelessness out of the city center, where they could more easily access necessary services and into places like neighborhoods and parks.

Some major Texas cities have reduced the number of people experiencing unsheltered homelessness in recent years. Officials in Houston and Dallas have focused reduction efforts on quickly finding new housing for people living in encampments and other places that aren’t suitable for living while connecting them with support services. Those cities saw street homelessness fall by more than 25% from 2019 to 2024, federal figures show.

Under that strategy, ticketing people experiencing homelessness is often unnecessary, said Sarah Kahn, CEO of Housing Forward, the lead agency in charge of tackling homelessness in Dallas and Collin counties. That’s because they’ve either been connected to services or law enforcement authorities have made it clear that camping at those sites will no longer be tolerated, she said.

Homeless advocates also worry that a proposal billed as cracking down on squatters will result in more people experiencing homelessness. Senate Bill 38 would speed up the eviction process and reduce legal protections for the state’s 4.2 million renter households, tenants’ advocates have said. Those facing eviction face a higher risk of becoming homeless, researchers have found. Homeless service providers worry the bill would accelerate evictions and lead to higher levels of homelessness.

“The more people that we evict, the more people who are going to fall into homelessness,” Samuels said. “It’s that simple.”

Landlord groups like the Texas Apartment Association have pushed the bill to deal with what they’ve said is an uptick in encounters with squatters — and difficulty under existing law getting them to vacate their property. The bill’s opponents argue that squatting cases are rare and don’t necessitate relaxing tenant protections against eviction.

State Sen. Paul Bettencourt, a Houston Republican who authored the bill, dismissed concerns that the legislation could spur an increase in homelessness.

“The only way to get rid of [squatters] is to speed up the eviction process,” Bettencourt said in an interview.

Senators approved the bill, 21-8, in April, and it awaits a committee hearing in the House.

Meanwhile, bills that advocates say could help people escape homelessness have yet to hit the floor in either chamber — like a proposal to help people experiencing homelessness regain crucial personal identification documents such as birth certificates and driver’s licenses.

A bill by state Sen. Tan Parker, R-Flower Mound, would require the state’s six largest counties to set up crisis service centers to provide mental health services for people experiencing homelessness. About 22% of homeless Texans suffer from a severe mental illness, federal data shows. Parker’s bill, which has been left pending in committee, would help address a population whose needs are often difficult — if not impossible — to meet, Kahn said.

“We all want the same thing,” Kahn said. “We want to end street homelessness, and we want to really address public health and safety for all of our neighbors, and we have tools that can achieve that outcome.”

Disclosure: Texas Apartment Association has been a financial supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune's journalism. Find a complete list of them here.

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