Bill to ban homeless people from street camping comes from think-tank hundreds of miles away
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Founder of Safe Park Indy stresses importance of helping the community
Safe Park Indy partnered with a church in Indianapolis to give homeless people a safe place to park and sleep at night.
Indiana lawmakers are considering a bill that advocates say would criminalize homelessness across the state.
The bill's language mirrors model legislation from the Cicero Institute, a conservative Texas-based think tank that has pitched similar legislation around the country to combat rising homelessness numbers. In Indianapolis, the city's homeless population rose 5% from 2023 to 2024, according to an annual count held last year.
It's also just the latest bill that taps into the state vs. local government control fight that happens every legislative session.
House Bill 1662 would prohibit camping or sleeping on state or local government-owned property. A person found sleeping or camping on streets or public property would receive an initial warning and then a Class C misdemeanor for their next violation.
The bill also says local governments cannot direct law enforcement or prosecuting attorneys to ignore enforcing the street camping ban and would allow Hoosiers or the attorney general to bring civil lawsuits against municipalities they believe are not following the law.
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The House Committee on Government and Regulatory Reform only heard testimony on the bill on Monday. Whether the committee will vote on the bill is unclear at this point, as lawmakers face a looming deadline to get bills out of committees by next Monday. State Rep. Doug Miller, R-Elkhart, who chairs the committee, said lawmakers would continue to have discussions this week before making a decision on whether to vote on the bill.
But advocates for expanding homeless services and Democratic lawmakers on Tuesday questioned the purpose of the bill and whether the state or local governments should control a municipality's homelessness policies.
'This is for a local government to decide how to handle,' said Thomas Lopez, the Center Township Trustee from Hancock County. 'Not a bill that is not addressing the real issues with homelessness, but rather give an okay to clean up the streets.'
Cicero Institute policies spreading
State Rep. Michelle Davis, R-Whiteland, who authored the bill confirmed Monday that the language came from The Cicero Institute. The organization, founded by tech entrepreneur and investor Joe Lonsdale, points to states like Georgia and Florida that have passed legislation based on Cicero policies that ban homeless encampments.
The Cicero Institute's position has been affirmed in the last year from a 2024 U.S. Supreme Court decision that ruled cities can ban people from sleeping and camping in public spaces and past comments from President Donald Trump about supporting the removal of homeless people from public streets.
Lonsdale, who founded software company Palantir, wrote in 2023 for an urban policy magazine that homelessness policies are often 'controlled by a national activist movement' that has not made progress on solving problems across the country.
'Made up of thousands of service providers, this movement has become unaccountable and has failed to make meaningful improvements in conditions for the homeless, all while docking taxpayers more and more money,' Lonsdale wrote.
More: Indy's homeless count rose in 2024, reversing downward trend in wake of pandemic
Devon Kurtz, the Cicero Institute's policy director, emphasized at the House committee on Monday that the country's current approach to address homelessness is not working.
"Indiana and the country as a whole, is not experiencing a homelessness crisis as much as experiencing an unsheltered humanitarian disaster,' Kurtz said. 'More must be done helping people leave the streets.'
But some lawmakers and people who testified Monday questioned whether language from a Texas-based organization would improve homelessness in Indiana, hundreds of miles away. Homelessness is a 'local, sometimes hyperlocal issue that needs resources,' said Rabbi Aaron Spiegel, with the Greater Indianapolis Multifaith Alliance.
'Texas-based interest groups telling us what to do doesn't help,' Spiegel said.
Davis told committee members that she had not communicated with local governments about how the bill would conflict with local ordinances. She said she did not view the bill as state overreach when a Democratic committee member asked if lawmakers were overstepping with Davis' proposal.
Advocates say more services needed
Representatives of various advocacy and religious organizations from Indiana United Ways to the Marion County Reentry Coalition said what Indiana's homeless population needs is more investment in services rather than adding criminal misdemeanors to someone who is already struggling.
'House Bill 1662 will burden individuals with fines and arrest records and significantly burden taxpayers,' said Lori Phillips-Steele, the Indiana director of the Corporation for Supportive Housing. 'It relies on expensive crisis response systems like policing, court systems, emergency medical services and jails, and individuals are often discharged right back into homelessness, perpetuating the cycle of homelessness and incarceration without actually reducing homelessness.'
Doris Jones, who co-founded Hope Packages in Indianapolis, asked lawmakers to focus on ways to help homeless populations around the state.
'Come up with a solution of more shelters on the streets instead of harassing people who only need housing,' Jones said. 'That's the issue, more affordable housing, more shelters.'
Contact IndyStar state government and politics reporter Brittany Carloni at brittany.carloni@indystar.com or 317-779-4468. Follow her on Twitter/X@CarloniBrittany.
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