HB 1365 / SB 1530 is highly alarming. If enacted into law, it would outlaw homeless encampments throughout Florida, allow private citizens to sue to remove encampments and effectively lead to the mass incarceration of poor, unsheltered persons throughout the state.  

And legislators are considering this homelessness criminalization bill against the backdrop of Florida now becoming the #1 most expensive state to live in the USA with the highest rents and lowest wages in the USA. Source: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/florida-least-affordable-state-us-miami-tampa-orlando-naples-rent/

Rather than punishing the poor with laws to arrest people who are forced into homelessness by our state's outrageously high rents, we must enact eviction prevention measures for the relief of the working poor. And we must protect our most vulnerable poorest residents by providing supportive housing under Housing First principles.

Criminalizing homelessness is not only futile, it is an expensive way to make homelessness worse.

We will not and indeed cannot arrest our way out of homelessness. No locality has ever done so, despite the proliferation of laws to criminalize homelessness over the past 40 years.  

Only homes and affordable housing will end homelessness. We need housekeys, not handcuffs.