Punitive Policies Will Never Solve Homelessness: The Evidence is Clear

We all want to live in vibrant communities that support residents’ health, safety, and access to public space. Politicians are twisting these public health and safety goals to justify criminalizing homelessness — prohibiting and punishing people for sleeping, sitting, standing, and other life sustaining activities unavoidable to unhoused people — when the evidence shows these policies result in worse health and safety outcomes for both unhoused and housed residents.

Since the Supreme Court’s decision in City of Grants Pass v Johnson, more than 150 communities have enacted camping bans or other similarly punitive measures. As at least 50 other states and local governments actively consider legislation to criminalize homelessness, the Alliance encourages lawmakers to consider the clear message from decades of research compiled in recent briefs: laws that criminalize homelessness worsen the crisis and cause serious harm to the people they target.

Criminalization harms people experiencing homelessness through: 

1. displacement, as people are either forced to move from place to place by law enforcement or to avoid law enforcement contact;

2. loss or destruction of possessions, including legal and financial documents like driver’s licenses, medical equipment and prescriptions, and meaningful personal effects; and 

3. fines, fees, arrest records, and/or incarceration, which only increase barriers to accessing stable housing and finding or maintaining employment, thereby prolonging homelessness. 

Each citation, encampment eviction, or move-along order perpetuates a cycle of negative effects. A nationwide shortage of 200,000 year-round shelter beds for adults means that there is typically nowhere else for people to go: nearly 80% of communities have a bed shortage. And what few shelter beds are available may come with barriers that deter its use — such as timed entry requirements, bans on bringing pets or personal possessions, and conditions of family composition or gender identity.

Instead of addressing these issues, communities force people to move from one public area to another, making the cycle of enforcement, displacement, and punishment increasingly difficult to escape. 

Criminalization prevents communities from solving homelessness. 

• People lose trust in and connections to service providers and other resources, including medical personnel treating physical and/or mental health conditions, and street outreach staff working towards housing connections.

• Health conditions worsen and safety risks increase, as people move into more marginal and environmentally hazardous locations and the availability of protective factors like community ties decrease. These dynamics contribute to significantly higher mortality rates for people experiencing unsheltered homelessness compared with people who are sheltered or housed.

• Local expenditures rack up, as already understaffed and overburdened emergency responders are forced to divert scarce time and resources to enforce and response to these punitive policies. These additional emergency costs do not address underlying housing and service needs, nor do they consistently reduce crime, address public health concerns, or decrease the presence of unsheltered homelessness or public perception of it. 

Each one of these points is backed by years of peer-reviewed research. Criminalization ordinances have existed for decades, yet there is no empirical evidence that these punitive policies reduce homelessness. Pairing permanent housing with accessible services for unhoused people remain effective at solving homelessness, and often save money. For a full review of the literature, see the Alliance’s research summaries.

Hundreds of thousands of people currently live in states and municipalities with criminalization ordinances, and more are under threat. Advocates, policymakers, and everyday Americans are encouraged to draw upon this research to push back on local efforts to criminalize homelessness and shift the focus to effective and humane solutions.