House Bill 5260 Aims to Protect People from Being Punished for Basic Survival as Homelessness Continues to Rise
When people are punished for trying to survive, homelessness doesn’t decrease. It gets worse.
“Homelessness is not a crime,” Sarah Fox, CEO of the Connecticut Coalition to End Homelessness, told Invisible People. “It is a statewide crisis that we are all working to solve together to help bring our neighbors indoors.”
The coalition supports House Bill 5260, which would prevent cities and towns from fining or arresting people for basic survival activities like sleeping, eating, resting, or seeking food in public. Fox said the proposal “has started a critical and necessary conversation in Connecticut about how we respond to homelessness with dignity, not criminalization.”
“At the federal level, we’re seeing a push toward enforcement-driven responses to visible homelessness, framing homelessness as ‘crime and disorder’ instead of the housing and public health challenge it is,” Fox said in her testimony supporting H.B. 5260.
Last year, a similar measure failed to receive a vote in the full state legislature, effectively allowing the criminalization of homelessness to continue. Now, Connecticut lawmakers are making a second attempt to pass protections, following a 2024 Supreme Court ruling that expanded states’ ability to punish people for surviving outside.
Housing advocates say the stakes are high and warn that when protections fail, homelessness worsens and the consequences can be severe, including increased risk of death.
Unsheltered Homelessness Has Surged in Connecticut Since 2021
Recent data shows that homelessness in Connecticut has increased each year from 2021 through 2025. More concerning, unsheltered homelessness has surged from 294 people on a given night in 2022 to 833 in 2025, a 183% increase.
This rise is not driven by individual behavior, but by economic pressure. Like much of the country, Connecticut is facing a growing gap between incomes and the cost of living. According to DataHaven, the most common reasons people enter shelters are financial: expenses exceeding income (28%), doubling up (22%), and eviction or foreclosure (13%).
“We face a critical shortage of affordable housing and persistent inequities that disproportionately impact communities of color, older adults, people with disabilities, youth, and families,” she said. “And the toll is devastating.”
Misconceptions About Homelessness Inform Anti-Homeless Testimony
While experts have repeatedly expressed concern about both the ethics and effectiveness of criminalization practices, communities across the country still struggle to protect the rights of homeless individuals. An example of these roadblocks can be observed through First Selectman Carl Fortuna’s testimony against this bill.
“HB-5260 will undermine a municipality’s ability to protect the health and safety of the public visiting our parks, town greens, recreational facilities, downtowns, and other public spaces,” Fortuna wrote in his statement against HB-5260. “Towns need to be able to take steps to ensure that individuals do not set up encampments or engage in other conduct that may create unsanitary or unsafe conditions. When the downtown is a small area, like it is in Old Saybrook and many other small towns, this type of conduct can be disruptive and upsetting to merchants doing business.”
Homeless People Don’t Make Communities Unsafe
Negative messaging and anti-homeless rhetoric will tell you that homeless people make communities unsafe. Statistically, that’s untrue.
In fact, most often, the opposite happens. Homeless people are more likely to be at the receiving end of violence and crime. Homeless homicides have increased by as much as 60% in the last two years.
“Violence against homeless people is not new, and longstanding policies criminalizing unhoused people—primarily at the local level—have promoted it,” said Maria Foscarinis, founder of the National Homelessness Law Center.
Criminalization Makes Homelessness Worse
Experts consistently say that criminalization only makes homelessness worse. As Fox stated in her testimony:
“Ticketing, fining, arresting, or displacing someone for sleeping or resting does not reduce homelessness. Instead, it worsens this growing crisis. When we slap fines or cuffs on an unhoused person, we are only adding to the mountains of systemic roadblocks. Court debts, criminal records, and additional instability will only add another layer.”
“In a time when criminalization is spreading, at both federal and local levels, we have to push back that much harder,” she continued. “When opposition arises, we must respond with facts as many times as it takes. We must correct the misconceptions that make way for anti-homeless rhetoric and the harmful policies they form.”
Fox urged lawmakers to pair H.B. 5260 with a continued collaboration between the legislature, municipalities, Department of Housing, Department of Mental and Addiction Services, providers, outreach teams, and community partners, “so municipalities are not left absorbing the downstream costs of homelessness through police, EMS, hospitals, and public works—without the housing and support tools that actually reduce homelessness.”
Connecticut is one of many states taking steps to limit the criminalization of homelessness, reflecting a broader shift in how some policymakers are approaching the issue.
“We are encouraged by the progress made this session, including movement toward protections that ensure individuals are not removed from encampments without adequate notice and growing alignment around the need for a more consistent, statewide response to extreme weather—recognizing that exposure to heat, cold, and severe conditions is a life-safety issue for people experiencing homelessness,” Fox said.
“While these bills are still in progress, this momentum matters. Our focus remains on building a response that increases access to housing and support, not punishment. There is still work to do, and we are committed to working together to move this forward.”
