Short title

This Act may be cited as the

No Homeless Detention Centers Act

Findings

Congress finds the following:(1)Homelessness is growing across the United States due to a lack of affordable housing and health care options, economic hardship, systemic racism, chronically low wages, underemployment and unemployment, gentrification, housing discrimination, mass incarceration, discrimination based on immigration status, criminalization of poverty, domestic violence, discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, gender nonconforming, and queer individuals, trauma, disabilities, personal and medical debt, a lack of affordable childcare, natural disasters, barriers to the social safety net system, and unexpected loss of household income.(2)A primary response to the growth of homelessness at the local level has been to ban sleeping, lying, sitting, standing, loitering, sheltering oneself in public places, vagrancy, and soliciting donations. More than 300 municipalities, counties, and States have passed new laws criminalizing camping since the decision in City of Grants Pass v. Johnson, 603 U.S. 520 (2024), overturned prior protections under the Eighth Amendment for people experiencing homelessness. Despite the growth of laws criminalizing camping over the past 4 decades, homelessness has continued to increase.(3)Many anti-vagrancy and anti-solicitation ordinances were passed in the immediate aftermath of the Civil War as part of Jim Crow Black Codes to enable incarceration of formerly enslaved persons without jobs and force them back into involuntary servitude through the loophole in the Thirteenth Amendment that permits involuntary servitude as a condition of punishment.(4)More recently, the Cicero Institute has promoted State legislation creating statewide camping bans, penalizing communities that do not heavily enforce such bans, and authorizing the creation of State-run camps where unhoused people would be forced to go under threat of arrest for violating such camping bans. Versions of this legislation have passed in Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Kentucky, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, and Utah.(5)In July 2025, supported by the Cicero Institute, President Trump issued Executive Order 14321 (90 Fed. Reg. 35817), conditioning Federal grant funds to communities on whether such communities enforce prohibitions on urban camping and loitering, urban squatting, and illicit drug use, as well as expanding the use of involuntary commitments and decreasing access to permanent housing. The Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Department of Health and Human Services, and the Department of Justice have all included these conditions in grant applications, though at least some of these conditions have been stayed under court order. In August 2025, President Trump ordered Federal law enforcement agents and the National Guard into Washington, DC, to remov[e] homeless encampments from all over our parks and get rid of the people from underpasses. President Trump has also called for the creation of mass homeless camps where people would be forced to go under threat of arrest.(6)The Department of Homeland Security has expanded the use of mass detention centers for immigrants, using sprung structure facilities, such as the Alligator Alcatraz facility, and converting warehouses for detention purposes. Similar proposals for placing unhoused persons into both sprung structures and warehouses have been made in numerous States.(7)Utah Governor Spencer Cox explicitly instructed the Utah Homeless Services Board to align their work with Executive Order 14321 (90 Fed. Reg. 35817) and to accelerate planning for a massive 1,300 bed sprung structure facility, combining locked-door facilities and work-conditioned housing. Unhoused persons would be forced to stay in the facility under court order or under threat of having anti-camping ordinances enforced against them if they needed to sleep after leaving the facility. Violating a court mandate to stay in the work-conditioned housing could result in imprisonment.(8)West Virginia and Louisiana have also introduced State legislation promoting forced labor for unhoused persons as part of the sentences of such persons for violating anti-camping laws.

Prohibited activities

A recipient of Federal funds from the Department of Housing and Urban Development may not—(1)compel, by threat or imposition of punishment, a person engaging in life-sustaining activities on public property to reside in a facility designated for housing or sheltering homeless persons;(2)compel a person residing in a facility designated for housing or sheltering homeless persons to provide labor in order to reside in such facility;(3)threaten or impose punishment on a homeless person because such person is engaging in life-sustaining activities on public property; or(4)provide assistance to any State or local law enforcement officer or private contractor acting under color of Federal law or receiving Federal funds to threaten or impose punishment on a homeless person because such person is engaging in life-sustaining activities on public property.

Definitions

In this Act:(1)

Homeless person

The term homeless person has the meaning given that term in section 103(a) of the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act (42 U.S.C. 11302(a)).(2)

Life-sustaining activities

The term life-sustaining activities means those activities necessary to maintain the basic biological health and safety of a human being, including moving, resting, sitting, standing, lying down, sleeping, protecting oneself from the elements, eating, drinking, and storing such personal property as is needed to safely shelter oneself.(3)

Public property

The term public property means any property that is owned or leased, in whole or in part, by the United States or by any State, unit of local government, Tribal government, or territory of the United States, including areas adjacent to public property upon which there is an easement for public use or that is held open to the public, including—(A)plazas;(B)courtyards;(C)parking lots;(D)sidewalks;(E)public transportation facilities and services;(F)public buildings;(G)underpasses and lands adjacent to roadways; and(H)parks.(4)

Punishment

The term punishment means physical violence or civil or criminal legal consequences, including—(A)arrest;(B)imposition of fines;(C)revocation of privileges, such as revocation of a driver’s license; and(D)limitation of legal rights, such as involuntary commitment, conservatorship, or guardianship.