Texas House Democrats block bill to punish cities that don't clear homeless encampments
Senate Bill 241 by Sen. Pete Flores, R-Pleasanton, would have required cities to establish channels for residents to report illegal homeless encampments. If a complaint were not addressed within 90 days, the state could send the Department of Public Safety to clear encampments, then charge the city for that enforcement by withholding sales tax revenues.
Flores said the bill strengthens the 2021 ban by "empowering residents to hold their cities accountable."
"Every Texan deserves safe, clean communities, and this bill is an important step toward ensuring that," the senator, whose district includes San Antonio, said in a social media statement May 14.
Texas' attorney general, currently Republican Ken Paxton, would have been responsible for notifying the DPS and the state comptroller about unresolved complaints. The bill's House sponsor, Rep. Giovanni Capriglione, argued cities aren't sufficiently enforcing the law.
"The state has been the one footing the bill for the cities that have failed to address homeless camping in their jurisdiction," said Capriglione, R-Southlake. "Whether it's in my area, in Fort Worth, or in Dallas or here in Austin, everybody knows that these homeless camping restrictions have not been enforced."
Austin city officials, however, disagree. The city cleared 1,500 encampments in 2024, according to David Gray, the city's Homeless Strategy Officer.
"Every day, we have staff out in the community that are engaging with people on the street, offering them access to shelter and housing services, and posting 72-hour notices to clear encampments," Gray told the American-Statesman in a phone interview Tuesday. "From our perspective, the bill wasn't necessary. We're already doing the work."
During floor debate of the bill, Rep. Gina Hinojosa, D-Austin, argued that the state is contributing to Austin's homelessness problem by sending formerly incarcerated people into the city when their sentences end. She pointed to a state-licensed halfway house in East Austin, the Austin Transitional Center, where she said the majority of the population has no connection to Travis County.
"We are blamed for our homelessness problem in Austin when it is the state of Texas who is in large part creating the problem," Hinojosa said.
State Rep. Gene Wu, the House Democratic Caucus chair, dealt the death blow to SB 241 late Monday night. He argued its caption, "relating to prohibitions on camping in a public place," violated a House rule that requires captions to "give reasonable notice of the subject of the proposed measure."
Wu said he killed the bill because it would have done nothing to alleviate the homelessness crisis, but instead punish people experiencing homelessness and municipalities such as Austin, Dallas and Houston that are trying to find compassionate solutions to the ongoing crisis.
"It is a genuinely evil bill," Wu told the Statesman.
Capriglione postponed the bill to June 3, an acknowledgement that there is not enough time to fix the caption issue before the 2025 legislative session adjourns on June 2.
The bill had passed in a bipartisan 22-8 vote in the state Senate, with Democratic Sens. Royce West of Dallas, Juan "Chuy" Hinojosa of McAllen and Carol Alvarado of Houston joining Republicans to support the measure.
Austin, the seat of state government, has struggled with how to address homeless encampments. Austin voters in 2021 reinstated the city's camping ban, which the City Council had repealed in 2019.
In 2021, the political action committee behind the city's homeless camping ban sued Austin, accusing the city of failing to fully enforce the ordinance. The Third Court of Appeals affirmed in February 2025 that the group, Save Austin Now, lacked standing to bring the lawsuit.
Gray said that eliminating unsheltered homelessness will take more than clearing encampments. In Austin, there is one shelter bed for every five people living on the streets, he said.
"Rather than the Legislature taking up bills that make it more challenging for us to enforce, we invite them to be part of the solution," he said. "And the way that you do that is by getting people into shelter and getting people into housing programs wrapped around with case management, substance treatment and job training that they need to stabilize their lives and then thrive on their own."
Statesman staff writer John C. Moritz contributed reporting.
This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Texas Democrats kill bill penalizing cities over homeless encampments
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