Washington— The Bail Project has released a detailed explainer warning that courts across the country are increasingly treating homelessness as a criminal issue, a practice the organization says fuels incarceration, destabilizes families and deepens inequality rather than improving public safety.
The explainer, Homelessness Shouldn’t Be a Crime: Why Jailing People for Poverty Fails Communities and Fuels Injustice, documents how unhoused individuals are disproportionately arrested for low-level, survival-based offenses such as trespassing, loitering, sleeping outside or stealing food. The report states that nearly every state has at least one law criminalizing basic acts of survival, turning poverty itself into a pathway to jail.
According to the report, approximately 205,000 unhoused people are booked into U.S. jails each year not because they pose a danger, but because their poverty has been criminalized. The explainer describes jails as de facto shelters, cycling people with nowhere else to go through the misdemeanor system without addressing housing, health care or treatment needs.
One story highlighted in the report is that of Shelley, a 65-year-old retiree from Tulsa, Oklahoma, who was arrested for attempting to leave Walmart with food she could not afford. She was assigned $800 in cash bail, an amount she could not pay after years of homelessness.
“We were on the street for years,” Shelley said. “That’s a long time to lay down on concrete.”
The explainer argues that once someone experiencing homelessness is arrested, cash bail functions as a poverty penalty. Bail amounts that may appear modest on paper routinely become insurmountable barriers for people living on the streets or couch surfing, resulting in unnecessary jail stays for low-level offenses.
Riley, a bail disruptor working on the Flathead Reservation in Montana, said people without housing are often penalized simply because of their instability.
“People who are homeless frequently don’t receive notice of court hearings because they can’t reliably get their mail,” Riley said, adding that unhoused individuals receive more failure-to-appear warrants than those with consistent housing.
The report notes that judges often set higher bail for people without permanent addresses, labeling them as flight risks or assuming greater substance use because of their vulnerability. As a result, homelessness itself becomes a factor that drives prolonged incarceration before trial.
The explainer also highlights the compounding effects of even brief jail stays. National data cited in the report shows that the median jail stay for unhoused people is 14 days, more than three times longer than for the general jail population, and that 40% of unhoused defendants are booked multiple times in a single year.
Christine, a bail disruptor in St. Louis, said short periods of incarceration can trigger lasting harm.
“A few days in jail can completely change the course of a person’s life, especially for someone who is already housing insecure,” Christine said, noting that people often lose jobs, housing placements or access to phones during incarceration.
The report recounts additional cases in which arrest led directly to homelessness, including a pregnant woman held on $11,500 bail for a missed court date who lost her job and apartment, and a young mother whose drug charge triggered eviction from public housing before any finding of guilt.
The explainer also challenges the notion that criminalizing homelessness improves public safety.
Robert Brown, The Bail Project’s national director of operations, said the motivation behind such policies is visibility, not security.
“This isn’t about public safety,” Brown said. “It’s about discomfort. Cities use arrests and citations to move poverty out of sight.”
The report situates these practices within a broader policy shift, citing the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2024 decision in Grants Pass v. Johnson, which removed constitutional protections against punishing people for sleeping outdoors when no shelter is available, and a subsequent White House executive order encouraging states to criminalize homelessness under the banner of law and order.
The explainer outlines The Bail Project’s alternative approach. The national nonprofit posts bail at no cost to clients and provides court reminders, transportation, and connections to housing, treatment and employment services.
Christine said effective support requires more than referrals.
“You have to make sure they actually have the means to reach those resources,” she said, describing assistance such as bus passes, rides and help making initial appointments.
According to the organization, clients return to court more than 90% of the time, demonstrating that it is support, not money, that ensures accountability. Staff members described providing phones, transportation and coordinated referrals as critical tools for stabilizing clients after release.
The report concludes that jail does not resolve homelessness and that cash bail does not create safety, but instead entrenches inequality by tying freedom to wealth. Taken together, the explainer frames a justice system that responds to poverty with punishment rather than care, cycling people through arrest and incarceration while leaving the root causes of homelessness unaddressed.
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