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Iowa lawmakers could revisit homelessness bill after Supreme Court allows cities to ban encampments
State policy ‘up in the air’ for 2025, but some cities now exploring policy changes
CEDAR RAPIDS — A U.S. Supreme Court ruling last month allowing local governments to fine people for sleeping in public areas may pave the way for state lawmakers to revisit legislation in 2025 that would criminalize homelessness, and some Iowa cities are weighing policy changes to respond to growing numbers of unhoused people.
Cedar Rapids and Iowa City have not taken up any homelessness policy changes since the court’s June 28 decision in Grants Pass v. Johnson, when the court ruled 6-3 in favor of Grants Pass, Oregon. The ruling allowed the city of 39,000 to proceed with its ban on sleeping in public with bedding.
Given that ruling, state and local officials are weighing whether any policy changes could help reduce the rising numbers of people living on the streets.
Iowa lawmakers in February tabled a bill that would have criminalized homelessness and redirected state funding toward state-sanctioned encampments. It mirrored legislation pushed in states across the U.S. by The Cicero Institute, an Austin-based conservative think tank.
“We’ll continue to look at it,” Sen. Scott Webster, R-Bettendorf, said Friday. He was on the local government subcommittee that tabled the legislation earlier this year.
“I’m interested in looking and seeing exactly what Des Moines is doing on it right now and taking the opportunity to look back and see if it does any decrease in crimes and issues like that that they may be having,” he said.
The Des Moines City Council on Monday is slated to consider a ban on camping and reducing the number of days people have to remove their belongings from public spaces, the Des Moines Register reported. It would end Des Moines’ complaint-based system of dealing with homeless encampments, instead allowing city staff to remove them on their own initiative.
Since July 2017, the number of people sleeping in places not meant for habitation has quadrupled in Linn County, according to the summer “Point in Time” homeless counts conducted by volunteers from Willis Dady Homeless Services and Waypoint in Cedar Rapids. In July 2023, the count was 123.
Johnson County saw a sharp increase in people sleeping outdoors for the first time in several years through its annual winter counts. After several years of a relatively stable winter count, Shelter House volunteers in January found 23 people living outdoors in Iowa City — an increase from 13 last year.
Could legislation impact supportive services?
The bill that Iowa lawmakers tabled earlier this year would have diverted state and federal funding from permanent supportive housing toward designated camping sites that offer mental health and substance use disorder services, bathrooms, security and other resources for people experiencing homelessness.
But shifting funds away from permanent supportive housing would undermine an approach to reducing homelessness backed by advocates and the Iowa Finance Authority.
Some municipalities like Cedar Rapids and Iowa City have increasingly turned to supportive housing instead of shelters as a solution to homelessness. Advocates say people first need housing as a stable base before they can address mental health or substance use issues.
This type of housing offers voluntary supportive services, such as substance use and mental health counseling and employment training, to enhance housing stability and overall well-being, said Ashley Jared, communications director for the Iowa Finance Authority.
“IFA fully supports the ‘Housing First’ model, an evidence-based practice validated by numerous national studies as the most effective approach to ending homelessness for most individuals and families,” Jared said in a statement. “This model rapidly provides stable, affordable and accessible housing to those experiencing homelessness without prerequisites.”
She said the approach is more cost-effective than allowing unhoused people to stay in shelters, jails or hospitals.
Devon Kurtz, who oversees Cicero Institute’s homelessness policy as its public safety policy director, said the think tank doesn’t support this approach because not all individuals are “housing ready.” He disputed research suggesting the model is successful, saying Cicero instead advocates for people to be moved to policed encampments and shelters.
The Supreme Court ruling showed the “importance for municipalities and states to have a variety of tools at their disposal to tackle this problem and a basic unacceptability of camps that can pose serious public safety and public health risks,” Kurtz said.
In many cases, Kurtz said, law enforcement doesn’t fine or arrest homeless people but engage with a population that is currently estranged from services.
“Outreach teams are the first to tell you that there is a service-resistant population,” Kurtz said. “How do we reach them? I hear municipality after municipality say, ‘We're not going to reach them. It's their choice to be out there.’ We reject that and we're not going to let people suffer on the street. And law enforcement is one of the pathways to doing it.”
Supportive housing study
The Iowa Finance Authority is completing a cost-effectiveness and outcomes analysis of permanent supportive housing that uses the “housing first” approach with those experiencing chronic homelessness in Iowa, Jared said.
Asked if state lawmakers may consider pausing legislation until that study is done, or solely focusing on the camping provisions, state Sen. Webster — a non-voting member of the Iowa Finance Authority board — said “all things are up in the air.”
“I think we'll continue to monitor, learn some things in the meantime while that study is going on, so that doesn't mean that we wouldn't do any legislation,” Webster said.
“I think the report will be a good thing to have, but it doesn't mean that we necessarily have to wait for that report, because I think we maybe have some areas that we can create legislation off of, just learning as the process goes through for that report.”
The Iowa Finance Authority selected the Amherst H. Wilder Foundation to complete the study through a competitive proposal process, Jared said. The final report from the multiyear study is anticipated to be done by August 2025.
Iowa City-based Shelter House, the state’s leader in permanent supportive housing, is participating in the study.
Christine Hayes, Shelter House’s director of development and communications, said the study involves interviews with people who’ve moved into its permanent supportive housing developments in Iowa City. The comparison group is made up of those who are eligible for housing but there’s either not enough space for them or they have opted out.
“Ideally, the study will give (clarity) on what the return on investment is on permanent supportive housing in Iowa so the state can make a meaningful contribution to solving the unhoused issue across the state,” Hayes said.
Specifically, she said the study will look at the health and financial outcomes for those who’ve been in permanent supportive housing.
Hayes said criminalizing homelessness does not decrease homelessness. Also, she said, It’s expensive to ticket homeless people, entailing law enforcement costs to issue citations, and administrative and prosecutors costs.
“There’s no substitute for respecting the autonomy and sense of agency for someone who had previously lost everything,” Hayes said.
Sen. Izaah Knox, D-Des Moines, said it’s important any state solution to homelessness recognizes the barriers unhoused people face to getting off the streets, including untreated mental health issues, high housing costs and lack of employment.
“We can’t arrest and fine our way out of it,” Knox said. “There are so many different systemic issues that we have to deal with in order to actually fix homelessness.”
Will Corridor cities make policy changes?
In the Corridor, no cities have yet brought forward policy changes in response to the ruling.
Iowa City City Manager Geoff Fruin said the Supreme Court ruling has not changed the city’s approach on enforcing park hours, nor has it prompted any conversations about doing so.
Voluntary compliance always is the objective, Fruin said in an email.
Iowa City has three parks — Blackhawk Mini park, Chauncey Swan Park and College Green Park — that are always open. City code bans people from occupying other parks from dusk to dawn.
Iowa City has financed a street outreach position at Shelter House since 2021. Fruin said the position has been “instrumental” in helping dozens of individuals find stable housing each year.
“In working with individuals experiencing homelessness, the city’s approach is to prioritize opportunities for stable housing and this partnership is the critical piece to achieving that goal,” Fruin said in an email.
Iowa City police issued one citation for sleeping in parks after hours in the last three years, according to data provided by the city.
In Cedar Rapids, the city issued a statement saying it “is evaluating existing policies and practices in light of the Court’s ruling.”
“If changes are proposed to the City’s Municipal Code following that evaluation, those changes will follow our usual ordinance procedure, including a public hearing to consider public input,” the statement said. “The safety of all visitors to our many city parks and gathering spaces is a critical consideration in our enforcement efforts.”
So far in 2024, Cedar Rapids officers have issued 10 citations for being in city parks after 10 p.m., according to data the city provided. There were six citations in 2020, 20 in 2021, 16 in 2022, and seven in 2023.
Although city officials are exploring camping policy changes, the city has recognized the need in recent years to expand affordable housing and address homelessness.
The city and Linn County jointly fund a Winter Overflow Shelter each year. The shelter provides a low-barrier shelter during the cold months, spanning from November to March.
Cedar Rapids enlisted Washington, D.C.-based National Alliance to End Homelessness last summer to provide recommendations to improve homelessness resource coordination among local governments and service providers.
As a result, the city and Linn County are jointly funding a homeless systems manager position for three years. This person will report to an oversight board and is charged with aligning local service providers to address homelessness more effectively and maximize resources, Community Development Director Jennifer Pratt said in a statement.
The alliance also recommended increasing efforts to divert individuals from becoming homeless and moving to a shelter.
“This means helping individuals identify resources to stay housed and out of shelter, thus reducing the number of individuals entering shelter and overwhelming the system,” Pratt said. The city will host a two-day diversion training this summer.
Megan Woolard of The Gazette contributed to this article
Comments: (319) 398-8494; marissa.payne@thegazette.com
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