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Advocates and lawmakers push bill to end criminal penalties for homelessness
Summary
Witnesses, elected officials and service providers urged the Joint Committee on Municipalities and Regional Government to report favorably on legislation that would bar cities and towns from fining or jailing people solely for sleeping, camping or trespassing when they have no shelter alternatives.
Lawmakers and service providers told a joint legislative committee Thursday they support House Bill 2261, which would bar cities and towns from imposing fines, tickets or criminal sanctions on people who sleep, camp or take shelter on public property when no alternative shelter is available.
The bill would not provide housing itself, witnesses emphasized; it would remove municipal penalties that advocates say punish people for lacking shelter. "Criminalizing homelessness did not improve either public safety or public health and indeed exacerbated both mental and medical conditions," Representative Lisa Fields said, citing a public health policy brief she planned to submit in writing.
Nut graf: Supporters called the bill a narrow statutory fix to stop municipalities from using enforcement tools that advocates say increase fines, court records and barriers to housing without creating shelter capacity, while opponents at the hearing did not offer competing policy proposals.
Speakers from statewide and regional homeless-service organizations described rising unsheltered homelessness and costs of enforcement. Joyce Tavon of the Massachusetts Housing and Shelter Alliance said unsheltered counts have doubled in the last decade in parts of the state and that encampment bans burden police departments and leave people with fines and criminal records. Pamela Schwartz, director of the Western Massachusetts Network to End Homelessness, said Western Mass. saw a 23% increase in unsheltered homelessness this year and stressed that shelter capacity is limited while rents have risen sharply.
Representatives and advocates said the U.S. Supreme Court decision in City of Grants Pass v. Johnson (referenced repeatedly by witnesses) has led some municipalities to adopt camping bans; they argued state law should stop local criminalization where shelter is not available. "This bill would interrupt the criminalization of homelessness," Kelly Turley of the Massachusetts Coalition for the Homeless said.
Witnesses asked the committee to pair the bill with investments in shelter, housing and services. "This bill wouldn't address root causes nor provide housing and services," Turley said, "but it would stop counterproductive enforcement practices that make people's health and housing outcomes worse."
Ending: Committee members asked no substantive questions during the panel and did not vote during the hearing; advocates said they will submit additional written testimony and urged a favorable committee report so the legislature can consider companion budget and programmatic proposals.
