In America’s Poorest State, Unhoused People May Soon Be Jailed

NEW ORLEANS — As the Louisiana state Senate debated what the National Homelessness Law Center says is “one of the cruelest anti-homeless bills in the country,” more than 50 mainly Black unhoused people sat and lay on the sidewalk in New Orleans’ Central City neighborhood. 

The bill, which already passed overwhelmingly through the state’s Republican-dominated House of Representatives, could subject unhoused people to fines, jail time, or even unpaid labor if they are found sleeping outdoors. 

“We’re struggling already and this isn’t a choice,” said Christopher Brumfield, 51. “This isn’t because we’re doing drugs. It is expensive to live, so you’re saying you want to penalize us for struggling?”

Brumfield has been unhoused “on and off” since 2020. He owns a trailer in a small rural town in Louisiana’s Livingston Parish, but he is unable to afford utilities, water, and a new septic tank — which costs upward of $20,000. He came to New Orleans to try to find a job five years ago.

“I’m working, but I can’t afford to stay in the house. I’ll die there,” he said, as he lay on the sidewalk on an 88‑degree spring day.

Louisiana’s efforts come on the heels of a 2024 Supreme Court decision that allows states and cities to criminalize homelessness. The bill, which is expected to be voted on by the state’s Republican-controlled Senate, would make homelessness and sleeping on the streets punishable by a fine of up to $500, imprisonment for up to six months, or both. Repeat offenders could face one to two years in prison with hard labor and a $1,000 fine.

Louisiana has the nation’s highest share of people living in poverty, according to the most recent data collected by the U.S. Census Bureau. And already, the state has the highest rate of incarceration not just in the U.S., but across the entire Western world. 

About 60% of Louisiana’s unhoused population is Black despite the state being 30% Black. 

State officials who have come out in support of the bill said it could help the impoverished state get in better graces with the Trump administration. Last summer, President Donald Trump issued an executive order that directs the federal government to attempt to favor states that enforce prohibitions on public camping and loitering when giving grants.

Since the Supreme Court’s 2024 decision, around two dozen states and hundreds of municipalities have passed various measures criminalizing poverty. The two states with the most municipalities passing such laws are California and Illinois, two Democrat strongholds.

Nationwide, Black people are most likely to be unhoused and nearly four times more likely than their white counterparts. 

A representative for Gov. Jeff Landry said Louisiana’s bill would help save the country money and could help connect unhoused people with more resources by expanding “homelessness courts,” which would allow some unhoused people to pursue a treatment program. Someone who successfully completes the program could have their conviction tossed. However, people enrolled in those programs could be required to pay for all or part of their costs. If they are unable to pay, the bill authorizes courts to mandate unpaid labor to offset the costs.

The new bill, advocates say, is the latest chapter in that pattern of turning Black poverty — and all the encompasses like addiction and survival tactics —  into criminalization rather than repair.

New Orleans City Councilmember Lesli Harris said the bill is akin to “internment camps” and would produce “no lasting housing, no services, and no real path forward for the people involved.”

Roughly 1 in 3 Louisiana households are “extremely low income,” according to the National Low Income Housing Coalition, meaning a household of four is making $30,000 or less. The organization estimates that there is a shortage of over 100,000 affordable and available homes for extremely low income people.

Jerry, 42, who was fired from his job three years ago after an accident left him injured, said those living on the street are “far from lazy.” He said he doesn’t fear work; he fears that the state is ignoring how he got here.

Jerry, who did not want to share his last name, grew up in New Orleans and remembers when “they had reasonable prices before the storm (Hurricane Katrina),” when a two-bedroom home did not eat an entire paycheck. 

In many ways, Hurricane Katrina did set the stage for a long-term homelessness crisis across the state. Since the storm, Black economic life outcomes have dwindled. 

Katrina shut Black renters out of the region’s post-storm housing market. In New Orleans, Black households that managed to rebuild in places like lower Mid-City saw their properties seized through eminent domain to make way for new developments, while neighboring, majority-white areas moved swiftly to ban or restrict rental housing and block low-income tax credit developments. In one neighboring city, which was 93% white at the time of the storm, a “blood relative” ordinance was passed that  made it illegal to rent to anyone who you weren’t related to, effectively keeping Black renters from returning to the region.

Today, in New Orleans and across Louisiana, the median income for the Black residents remaining is around $20,000, but the median rental price has jumped to $1,600 per month or $19,200 annually. 

Roughly half of the state’s unhoused population lives in New Orleans, despite the metro region only making up 25% of the state’s population. 

When people tell him to “just go to a shelter” in New Orleans, Jerry laughs without smiling. 

“They put you on the waiting list,” he said. “You got to have some type of credentials, paperwork, or ID, right?” But on the streets, he said, it is nearly impossible to keep that paperwork without it being damaged, stolen, or trashed.

“It’s just a redundant cycle — like a hamster on a wheel,” he said. “If you don’t have no phone or no paperwork, you can’t get no shelter, nothing. You can’t even sleep in front of the shelters now.” 

Last year, Alonzo Knox, a Democratic New Orleans representative, attempted to usher through a ban on homeless encampments, but it failed to make it out of the House. This year, Knox introduced a bill directing the Louisiana Department of Health and the state fire marshal to improve access and the standards for unhoused people living at shelters and community facilities, but some legislators and advocates worry it would dip into the state’s pool of money and make it too expensive to offer housing to those in need.

Debbie Villio, a Republican state representative who drafted this year’s anti-homelessness legislation, said the bill “prioritizes and balances accountability, compassion, fiscal responsibility and the long-term wellbeing of individuals, families and neighborhoods.”

The legislation, she said, “integrates criminal justice” and “homelessness response systems into a continuum of care.”

According to an unhoused couple that testified at a hearing related to this year’s bill, it lacks compassion. 

“If they were to walk in our shoes, they would experience the things that we go through,” Sherman Brown said at the hearing.

Since 2020, the state’s unhoused population has fluctuated between 3,000 and 7,500 people. 

“This isn’t right,” Brumfield said.

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