Houston Chronicle: Stop this government overreach against homeless services
Needles, condoms and human waste littered the park next to the elementary school. Disheveled men hung around at all hours, their behavior erratic and at times intimidating. The residents of the quiet Austin neighborhood had enough. They begged government officials to do something about the Sunrise Homeless Navigation Center, the nonprofit that operates across the street from the school.
“I hope something gets done before there is a tragedy,” one resident told KVUE News.
Houstonians don’t have to imagine what that would be like. Some of us remember: In 2016, on his way home from a science club meeting at the Near Northside’s Marshall Middle School, Josué Flores was stabbed to death. He’d dreamed of becoming a doctor. A man staying in a nearby homeless shelter was convicted for the murder in 2022. That shelter has been converted into nonprofit office space.
Now lawmakers in Austin are considering a bill that threatens to go after any nonprofit providing “homeless navigation services” within 1,500 feet of a public school. Senate Bill 2623, authored by state Sen. Brandon Creighton (R-Conroe), would create a commission appointed by the governor that would have the power to shutter their operations.
We obviously applaud the intention of keeping schoolkids safe. But it’s a bad bill.
Striking the right balance between public safety and helping the most vulnerable among us is the work of local leaders, not lawmakers who meet once every two years in Austin or an unfunded group of 11 appointees.
SB 2623 might force nonprofits across Texas to abandon their core missions. That includes churches that accept public funds to feed the hungry, provide child care for the working poor or offer job training.
We spoke with the CEO of a church-affiliated mission near a Houston elementary school. It’s a quiet little nonprofit stocked with veggies and frequented by families and seniors, most of whom are familiar to the convivial staff who greets them. Hardly the sort of place that feeds chaos and crime. The CEO said that they don’t ask the people who show up to their food pantry whether they are homeless. Most of their clients have jobs but are living on the edge, one unexpected hospital bill away from not being able to pay rent.
It’s possible that, if SB 2623 passes, the Abbott-appointed commission will leave this food pantry alone. But it’s impossible to be sure — to know which groups would be swept up in the dragnet.
The bill defines “homeless navigation services” as including any nonprofit that assists with “shelter, meals, medical care, substance abuse treatment, mental health services, employment resources, housing placement, and other services necessary for reintegration into stable living conditions.”
If a group is caught in that hazy definition, the bill would require it to shut down its program or, essentially, face the organizational equivalent of the death penalty: fines of $5,000 per day and termination of the group’s “certificate of formation.” The bill doesn’t spell out an auditing process or include an opportunity for appeals. The enforcement may end up being targeted and based more on politics than objective criteria.
People who work with the homeless believe that hundreds of nonprofits across the state could be affected, including nearly two dozen in Houston that range from the Wesley Community Center, a small organization based in the Near Northside for over a century, to the Beacon, a major downtown service provider. If those close, the effect would be terrible. The bill includes various exceptions to the ban, but that places an enormous burden on scrappy groups that don’t exactly have high-powered lawyers on staff. Nonprofits and their boards may be forced to abandon leases or mortgages with no compensation.
We believe that government officials already have tools to go after bad actors — tools that include law enforcement and nuisance laws. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is already suing Sunrise Navigation Center, the nonprofit in Austin.
The unintended harm that SB 2623 seems likely to cause to nonprofits would make our streets less safe, not more. As one nonprofit leader told us, if people slip through the safety net, there are more desperate people on the streets, and they are more likely to be a menace.
The Senate passed the bill at the end of April. This week, it made it out of the House Intergovernmental Affairs Committee.
Members of the House Calendars Committee should let the bill die before it even gets a vote.
With Congress considering deep cuts to government programs that help the needy, the last thing we need is for the state to go after nonprofits and faith groups. Please, tell your representatives that you oppose SB 2623.