Samaritan INN the Community – July
With June came the official end of the 89th Texas Legislative session, at least until a special session was called. It allowed for some breathing room (barely) before we began focusing on what would happen at the federal level. At the Collin County Homeless Coalition meeting we discussed an overview of the legislative session where we saw 9014 bills filed overall while only 1210 ever got sent to the governor. The Inn, along with fellow advocates across Texas, were following 29 bills overall that either strengthened the homeless response system, expanded affordable housing, supported intersectionality efforts, or those that targeted or further criminalized the homeless.
Nine bills would have greatly strengthened the homeless response system in Texas, creating better supports for youth 18-24 experiencing homelessness, ensured Texas-sized data collection and sharing, better prepared the state for funding of homeless response efforts in the event those responsibilities are passed to the states from the federal government, and could have better supported those experience mental health and homelessness. None of the nine made it beyond the floor of either branch.
Seven bills would have helped to expand affordable, accessible housing. Reducing homelessness is working in system-wide response areas such as Dallas/Collin County Continuums of Care, largely due to landlord incentive programs. One of the bills endeavored to create a statewide pilot program for landlord incentive programs. These bills also offered solutions for surplus properties to be used for veteran housing, reviewing rent caps for low-income housing, and more. None of them ever made it out of a committee.
Six bills would have supported individuals and families who not only experience homelessness, but also struggle with other concerns such as mental health, disabilities, and more. They are often the issues most people may also recognize but have the luxury of addressing them in their homes with privacy. One of these bills already exists for youth and those who suffer domestic violence and would have made it easier for those experiencing homelessness to get replacement vital documents. Documents that are vital to helping someone leave homelessness. This bill was the only one of this group to make it to a committee and beyond before it stopped progressing.
Finally, seven bills were filed that would hinder work being done to end homelessness. Effective efforts would be stymied and progress pushed backward. With your support, we were able to stop two of those bills (SB 241 and SB 2623) from becoming law. There were even last-minute actions attempted in the final hours of debate that lobbyists and supporters of Texas homelessness efforts combated successfully. Three bills did not progress far within the process. Unfortunately, two of the bills were passed and will be law. Both are deep wounds to the efforts of those working to solve homelessness. While one of them (SB 38) will likely lead to a massive increase in evictions, the other one (SB 617) blocks the ability of cities to assist in solutions that could revitalize unused properties such as hotels into affordable, effective housing solutions.
22 bills could have helped those experiencing homelessness. Instead of any of those landing, two bills passed through that will nothing but make the fight harder. Even in light of this heartbreaking session, we at the Inn know our work stops for nothing. The rest of June was filled with collective efforts to arrange and publicize the cooling stations through McKinney Homeless Coalition, meet with the All Neighbors Coalition to begin planning for the federal-level cuts to solving homelessness, host our second INNsights Town Hall where we talked about Housing First versus Traditional Models, met with the Texas Health Collaborative to plan out the next six months of increasing education in the county, support the successes of partner agencies, plan out the next movie screening, and fly out to attend the annual National Alliance to End Homelessness conference in Washington D.C. Check back next month to hear about the conference!
