No Homeless Detention Centers Act

Key Points

• The bill would ban any group that gets HUD money from forcing homeless people into specific shelters or camps under threat of arrest, fines, or other punishment.
• It also stops HUD-funded shelters from requiring homeless residents to work as a condition of staying there, directly targeting 'work-conditioned housing' models.
• The bill protects basic survival activities like sleeping, sitting, resting, and sheltering from weather in public spaces from being punished by HUD-funded entities or law enforcement using federal money.
• It responds directly to a July 2025 executive order that tied federal grants to communities enforcing camping bans and expanding involuntary commitment, and to state facilities like Utah's planned 1,300 bed locked facility.
• The bill's findings argue homelessness stems from a lack of affordable housing, low wages, and gaps in the social safety net, not from personal failure, and that criminalizing it does not fix these root causes.