Study: Anti-Homelessness Laws Don’t Work

A new analysis of encampment bans and punitive anti-homelessness measures shows that they do not help decrease actual homelessness — a fact housing advocates have been pointing out for years as the debate over the criminalization of homelessness continues to rage around the country.

As Roshan Abraham explains in Next City, “The study examined the effect of ordinances enacted between 2000 and 2021 across the 100 most populous U.S. cities, using data pulled from Continuums of Care — local entities that administer federal homelessness funding from the Department of Housing and Urban Development.”

The study, which went beyond camping bans to include other laws against public drunkenness and other actions criminalized in public but not private,  found that in some cases, “a quick dip in visible homelessness when laws were passed followed by a surge in homelessness that exceeded prior levels.”

According to the study, cities that criminalized homelessness saw a 2.2 percent increase in unsheltered homelessness. “The authors did look into whether criminalization ordinances could decrease unsheltered homelessness at the local level by pushing unhoused people into neighboring cities and counties without sanctions, but didn’t find any evidence to support this.”