WASHINGTON — The National Homelessness Law Center has sharply criticized Louisiana’s HB 211, calling it “one of the cruelest, most extreme anti-homeless bills anywhere” in the United States and warning that the legislation revives punitive approaches rooted in the state’s “dark history of prison labor, convict leasing, and Jim Crow.”
The NHLC was unsparing in its condemnation of Louisiana and Gov. Jeff Landry, who signed the legislation into law just last week. The organization likened HB 211 to “Louisiana’s dark history of prison labor, convict leasing, and Jim Crow.”
According to the NHLC, HB 211 will punish homeless people with “harsh fines and jail sentences” and lays the groundwork for “forced treatment and forced labor.” The NHLC claims this push is “part of a broader push to criminalize homelessness” nationwide.
“HB 211 represents a misguided and punitive response to the urgent issue of housing instability in Louisiana,” said Andreanecia M. Morris, president of Housing. The NHLC signers, including Morris, believe the bill is diverting potential support toward “criminalizing people who are experiencing homelessness,” which will only perpetuate the current homelessness epidemic.
The main accusation the NHLC levies, however, is directed toward the “billionaire-backed Cicero Institute.” In an NHLC memo published at the beginning of the month, the organization condemned the actions of the Cicero Institute. These include authoring and lobbying “for versions of template bills in ten states that make it a crime to sleep outside” and informing “the Trump Administration’s relentless attacks on real solutions to homelessness.”
What’s more, the Cicero Institute “advocates for forced treatment, forced labor, and detention camps.” According to the NHLC, these “are the kinds of policies that have directly led to the harassment, jailing, and even death of homeless people.” HB 211, they say, “is an extreme take on an already extreme template”: “The first bill of its kind to include unpaid labor.”
According to the publicly available text of HB 211, the recently signed bill is an acknowledgment “that there is a critical need for criminal justice system programs to assist those persons who are experiencing homelessness” and “for programs to assist those experiencing homelessness with mental health issues.” But some affiliated with the NHLC claim the focus is directed to the wrong place.
Notably, the bill also states that “the court, with the recommendation of the treatment program, may order the defendant to perform supervised work” without pay for people who have been experiencing homelessness.
Joe Heeren-Muller, the coordinator for the Louisiana Advocacy Coalition on Homelessness, said the Legislature has misidentified the problem. According to him, the bill “misunderstands the fundamental cause of homelessness; housing unaffordability. Instead, it conflates the individual vulnerabilities of unhoused people; poverty, domestic violence, age, health, etc.; with the reason that homelessness persists within our society.”
Heeren-Muller said homelessness affects Louisianans because “housing costs have soared while wages have stagnated.” He isn’t alone in this opinion.
“At a time when many in Louisiana are one financial misfortune away from being pushed into homelessness,” said Ameca Reali, executive director of the Louisiana Fair Housing Action Center, “the legislature’s move to criminalize homelessness builds on a long legacy of failed housing policies and management of the symptoms rather than getting to the root of the problem.”
“Louisianans deserve transformative, life-affirming solutions to the housing crisis, not more of the same.”
“Everyone needs a safe place to sleep at night,” said Corey Bordelon, executive director of the Northlake Homeless Coalition. “As HB 211 moves toward implementation, we urge local leaders, service providers, and community members to reject punitive approaches and instead come together to expand mental health services, shelter, and affordable housing options so that no one is met with handcuffs for lacking a place to sleep.”
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