The cruelty is coming at all levels

A conversation with Jesse Rabinowitz of the National Homelessness Law Center about federal evictions, the threat of detention, and 260 new laws to criminalize homelessness

Source: housingnothandcuffs.org/emergent-threats-homelessness-criminalization/

I sat down today in Washington D.C with Jesse Rabinowitz, Communications and Campaign Director for the National Homelessness Law Center. We discussed the spate of laws criminalizing homelessness since last year’s Supreme Court decision (Johnson v. Grants Pass). Many of these state and local laws have been driven by the Cicero Group, a rightwing think-tank led by billionaire co-founder of Palantir, Joe Lonsdale. We also talked Trump administration’s aggression toward to people experiencing homelessness, and a new, congressional bill to fight back.

Kaia Sand: Could you go over the bill introduced by Congress members Pramilla Jayapal and Maxwell Frost?

Jesse Rabinowitz: Two weeks ago, Congress members Jayapal and Frost introduced the Housing Not Handcuffs Bill, which is the first Congressional act solely focused on preventing the federal government and federal agencies from treating homelessness as a crime.

It's in direct response to last year's Johnson vs. Grants Pass Supreme Court ruling, which made it easier for city, states and the federal government to arrest, ticket or otherwise criminalize homelessness. This bill is focused on preventing the Trump administration from criminalizing homelessness.

When Trump ran for office, he spoke openly about a desire to round up homeless folks and force them into government detention camps. This bill would prevent that from happening. It would have also prevented the mass eviction from Deschutes Forest that happened in May. That was the largest eviction of homeless folks by the federal government in recent history. And it would also have a big impact here in DC. A lot of homeless encampments in D.C are on federal land because most of the small pocket parks and like small tracts of land are actually run by the federal government. Under Biden the national park service was horrendous in displacing and evicting and even arresting homeless folks

The Trump administration just yesterday floated yet again taking over DC using federal control, which would thereby enable them to further punish folks who have no choice but to sleep outside.

The Housing Not Handcuffs Act was introduced to prevent that from happening, and it's based on our template legislation called the Gloria Johnson Act, which has been introduced in a dozen states across the country, including Massachusetts just today. We’re seeing more and more states realize that the Supreme Court decision was disastrous, but it's fixable through new policy.

K.S. And is the Gloria Johnson bill designed to be at the state level?

J.R. It's designed to be used however people wanted to use it. We've seen it introduced at city level, at the state level and then the Housing Not Handcuffs Act was tweaked so it can be at the federal level.

KS: In addition to the Deschutes eviction, are there other instances at the federal level that you're seeing this kind of these crackdowns?

JR: D.C., certainly. Our mayor and the Trump administration are working hand at hand to turn all of DC into a no-tent zone. The National Park Service is pretty frequently clearing homeless encampments, with very little warning, with very little care for people. So it happened in DC. and then theoretically, it could happen in many other parts of the country. People don't realize how much of the country is federal land, whether it's federal aviation land, like land that borders an airport. Military property that's not obvious. Bureau of Land Management, aqueducts, national forests —all of those are federal land. So the opportunity to do it is very large.

We’re also very concerned about the increased role of ICE in every system.

We’re worried that ICE could be used as this paramilitary force, not only to harass, not just migrants, but homeless folks as well.

The Trump administration doesn't care about the rule of law. So they're not worrying about the laws. Do use federal agents to criminalize folks on state land?

KS: You’re talking about the National Park Service and ICE — are those two of the main kind of enforcement bodies that you're seeing?

JR: For now, National Park Service, Bureau of Land Management, and ICE. We're super aware that this Alligator Alcatraz in Florida got built in eight days. Is that a model that could be used for homeless detention camps as well? We're quite worried about that because Trump has talked very openly about forcing homeless folks into detention camps and passing a nationwide camping ban

KS: And then there’s the blurring, if someone is being enforced by ICE, whether they have documents or not, they could be homeless.

JR: In California, folks were getting picked up by ICE because they didn't have documents, but documents were thrown away when their camp got evicted by the government. It’s all connected. And it's all part of this passion to disappear people in communities that people that have less public support or communities that are easily otherwise-able — whether it's homeless folks, migrants, or trans folks. We’re being very clear that those communities, are the canaries in coal mine, and we have to stand up and say, ‘no — don't put people in camps period.’

It’s not only bad for those folks; they're coming for the rest of us too.

KS: With the report you just put out, are all those laws that passed since the Supreme Court ruling at the state level?

JR: It’s both at the city and state level. About 320 cities across the country have introduced laws to make it a crime to be homeless, and about 260 of those have been passed.

At the state level, we've seen maybe 54 laws introduced to make it a crime to be homeless. But thanks to the advocacy across the country, about 80% of those have been defeated.

KS: So there's more effective advocacy with the state legislation?

JR A lot of these [local laws] are like small, tiny towns where we didn't know that there was a bill introduced until it had already passed. With the state legislative process, there's more opportunity to engage. There's a stronger advocacy mechanism. The cities are are very, very quick.

KS: Where we have an entire legislative session to deal with the state level …

JR: Versus ‘Oh, we have a city council meeting tomorrow …’

KS: What are you noticing? I mean, how much is that Cicero template and how much is from tailor-made laws?

JR: The Cicero template is certainly a player on the state level, and a few of their laws were passed over the past legislative section, but several were defeated in Indiana, Iowa, a few in Texas were defeated.

We seeing us go toe-to-toe with billionaires and win, which I think is really exciting. Because we know that, not only do their laws not work, they're really unpopular. About 77% of people when polled think that the solution to homelessness is housing, not handcuffs. So we know that we have the data, we have the research, but we also have popular support on our side. When we're able to build strong, multi-sector campaigns, we can win, which to me gives me a lot of hope.

Cicero has imbued the waters with criminalization

A lot of the city-level laws are more pure camping bans. Cicero has imbued the waters with criminalization that it all comes back to them. Their fingerprints are all over the Grants Pass case, they filed a brief in favor of the city of Grants Pass. They have so polluted the ecosystem with this idea that you should arrest and ticket folks for being homeless, that it's seeping into the states even where they're not active …

Billionaires are really out of touch. They shouldn't be deciding homelessness policy.

Joe Landsdale, their CEO, is really good friends with Elon Musk, he’s good friends with JD Vance. He's good friends with Peter Thiel. He was at a meeting at the White House a few weeks ago. These people are deeply embedded in the national ecosystem in a way that's really damaging, because billionaires are really out of touch and they shouldn't be deciding homelessness policy. How out of touch is it for them to think that people choose to be homeless? How out of touch is it for them to think that the solution to the homelessness is jail? They don't know whether they're talking about. And we're also really aware that the budget cuts for social safety net programs directly benefit the very same people that are trying to put homeless folks in jail. And we think pulling that connection is really important because they don’t care about people, they just care about money.

KS: So with some of the city level laws, aside from camping bans, are you seeing other things like food bans or...

JR: We've seen less food bans. In [Fremont] California, there was a law that even prevented helping homeless folks. That town also has a Tesla headquarters. It has a Tesla manufacturing plant. So it's all connected. And like that has fortunately been paused,l …

KS: The law passed, but the enforcement is what's paused?

JR: How cruel is that? There was a mom who's kid was homeless and the law said she can't help them. That’s evil and people realize that is evil …

There’s a town in Florida where half of their jail was homeless folks. We were talking to Congressman Frost and he got some data from the Homeless Service providers that most people were people experiencing homelessness were arrested for the crime of being homeless. There was no drugs, no anything. It was just they were homeless. And it was also the first time they had ever been arrested..

KS: So then they had a record.

JR: They had a record. It's hard to get a job. It's hard for them to housing. We’re trying to remind people that like these laws make homelessness worse. They not only do nothing, they are actively harmful and they keep people living outside. None of us want to see people living outside. So if elected officials want to stop seeing people living outside, they will both knock-off passing these laws, not passing, but also focus on the solutions, which we know work.

KS: With this massive uptick of laws in the last year — 260 laws in the past year — how does that compare to recent history?

JR: We haven't tracked it before. I think it's safe to say that it's a significant inc increase.

KS: Are there some that stand out? I know California has been active.

JR: California certainly has the most. If I’m not mistake there are about 50 laws in California alone. Many of them have things like a $1,000 fine. If someone had $1,000 in disposable income, do you think they’d be living outside?

There was a law that thankfully failed in West Virginia that would have created a workhouse where poor people would have to provide labor for no money, for the crime of sleeping outside. We are going backwards …

KS: Dickens.

JR: Yeah. We’re going backwards, like convict policing, post-reconstruction. laws very, very quickly. And it didn't pass this time, but the idea is out there and it's terrifying .

Another really awful example is a Cicero Law Pass that in Kentucky that said — in addition to the standard Cicero template of no camping, redirecting funding from housing, and increased involvement of police— it said that if there was a homeless person on your private property, you could use invoke ‘Stand Your Ground’ and use deadly force to remove them.

They have made it legal to kill homeless people.

KS: And there are the recent cases of people actually dying because of these laws.

JR: In Atlanta, a man named Cornelius Taylor, was killed when his encampment was evicted — he was killed by city heavy machinery. A man in Florida froze to death after a Cicero law forced the state to sweep his tent. A man in California was also killed by heavy machinery when the city removed his encampment. In D.C., the man was almost killed with a forklift when they were trying throw away his tent. These ‘solutions’ killed them. Our opposition says they're the compassionate ones, that it’s not compassionate people outside. We agree. We don't want anybody living outside. The solution to that is not to kill them. It is to get them help and housing. that's what we actually have to be focused on.

KS: I have to say, for you doing this job right now, this is an extremely horrible moment. What are the things that you're finding that are working?

JR: The things that are working are when we come together, we can win. 80% of the state laws have been defeated. Our side is underfunded, scrappy, overworked, and we're beating billionaires who have many paid lobbyists in these states.

We’re on the right side of the history, and if people know that, we can win, but we have to activate people.

KS: What some places you think have successfully organized to resist?

JR: Indiana has done an amazing job. If I'm not mistaken, the Cicero Institute reintroduced the bill three times in the same legislative session through all these backroom, shady, political maneuvers, and they were beat every time. Iowa won. Even Texas — Cicero's backyard — defeated to Cicero-backed bills this legislative session.

We're seeing wins all across the country, and we’re seeing a growing recognition that we need to get folks into housing.

Housing’s too expensive for everyone except millionaires. We really need to make sure that when we're talking about addressing the affordable housing crisis, we're centering folks most harmed by it, and those are people who live outside.

I think most people get that the solution for rent being too high isn't throwing someone in jail; it’s making rent cheaper.

We did some polling around the Grant Pass case that showed people more people than not are now realizing that homelessness is caused by systems rather than individual choices, because more people have either experienced homelessness or housing instability, or have a loved one who did. This is impacting people in a way that it never has before, and it's impacting more and more people and people are realizing that, oh, the reason I can't pay my rent isn't because I don't want to pay my rent. It's because it's too damn expensive. 60% of households struggle to make ends beat. Half of rents are rent burdened. One in four, people pay in four people worry about imminently becoming homeless, one in five people spend all of their income on rent — and all of that was true before Trump's budget got passed. We are about to see millions more households either a paycheck away from homelessness or sleeping outside, and the solution is not to put them in jail. It's to make a housing system that works for the many and not the few.

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Jesse Rabinowitz, Communication & Campaign Director for National Homelessness Law Center (photo: Kaia Sand)