Advocates for unhoused individuals are warning about a new bill moving its way through the Louisiana Legislature. The bill, part of a larger trend of laws that critics say are meant to criminalize homelessness, creates a situation whereby individuals without homes could be forced to pay for treatment or be jailed and subjected to mandatory labor. The bill is being compared to slavery for homeless people.
A proposed Louisiana law imposes fines, prison and unpaid labor for sleeping outside
Common Dreams reported that the Louisiana House of Representatives passed House Bill 211 by a 70-28 vote. The bill would make it a crime to sleep in an unauthorized public area, with those convicted of a first offense subjected to a punishment of up to six months in prison and/or a fine of up to $500. The punishments for repeat offenders increase to one to two years imprisonment and a $1000 fine. Those convicted of the crime can avoid jail by entering a 12-month-long treatment program, with the bill authorizing treatment camps in remote areas. Individuals taking the treatment option would have to pay for “all or part of the cost of the treatment program to which he is assigned,” and those who cannot afford this would instead have to perform unpaid labor instead of payment.
As the National Homelessness Law Center posted on X, formerly Twitter, “Louisiana has advanced one of the cruelest anti-homeless bills in the country. It would force homeless people to choose between jail and involuntary treatment, make them pay for it, and if they can’t pay, force them to perform unpaid labor.”
Louisiana bill called “a farce” that further marginalizes unhoused people
“If people had the resources to pay for housing and physical and/or mental health services, they would not be on the street,” Loyola University New Orleans’ Gillis Long Poverty Law Center director Bill Quigley told Common Dreams, calling the provision “a farce.” Advocates in New Orleans point toward rising housing costs as a major cause of homelessness.
Democratic New Orleans City Councilmember Lesli Harris touted the success of the New Orleans Homes for Good program as an alternative. The program has moved over 1,000 people into housing and allowed for the closure of eight homeless encampments, Harris noted, all at the cost of $21,844 per person per year, less than half the cost of incarcerating an individual.
“HB 211 would steer Louisiana toward the most expensive option while producing no lasting housing, no services, and no real path forward for the people involved,” Harris said in an April 10 news release, referring to HB211’s treatment camps as “internment camps” and noting the remote locations where the camps are to be built.
Legacies of forced labor, racism and criminalizing homelessness
The advocacy organization Housing Not Handcuffs described the work requirements as forced labor, noting, “Louisiana has a long history — and present — of chain gangs, prison labor, and entrenched white supremacy. This bill clearly evokes debtor’s prisons, convict leasing, and the ugliest day of Jim Crow.” The organization also detailed the right-wing inspiration for the Louisiana bill, calling the proposal “an extreme take on the already extreme copy-paste legislation peddled by the Palantir-funded, billionaire-backed Cicero Institute” and noting “Louisiana Governor Landry cites Donald Trump’s anti-homeless policies to justify his support of this heinous bill.” The Louisiana bill also comes in the wake of a 2024 Supreme Court ruling in which the court’s conservative majority upheld the ability of states to pass laws to criminalize sleeping outside, which advocates for people experiencing homelessness warned would essentially criminalize homelessness.
Now, Louisiana seems poised to pass a law that goes further than most states in criminalizing homelessness. Critics of the proposal argue that the law would not only fail to address the root causes of homelessness, such as rising housing costs, but would also place a burden of either unaffordable costs or mandatory forced labor on already struggling individuals.