Everyone needs a safe place to live, and this is something that we want for all of our neighbors across North Carolina. Housing isn’t a partisan issue, it’s a human one. There are plenty of best practices and opportunities to collaborate across political and geographic lines on solutions to ensure that every North Carolinian has a home in which to live with dignity and opportunity. HB437 contains none of them.
As written, this bill means local governments and community organizations will be saddled with even more work without any extra money, meaning less help for our neighbors. We know that housing and support solves homelessness, this bill does nothing to get folks the housing or support they need. HB437 passed the North Carolina General Assembly earlier this month and was vetoed by Governor Josh Stein. By sustaining this veto and stopping this legislation from becoming law, our General Assembly would be choosing real solutions over unfunded mandates that push vulnerable North Carolinians further into crisis and take away their rights. Supporters of this legislation are spreading several pieces of misinformation, so let’s set the record straight with the truth.
If HB437 were to become law it would do nothing to increase or decrease the state’s ability to receive funding from HUD. According to the U.S. Code, “HUD shall not use the adoption, continuation, or discontinuance by a jurisdiction of any public policy, regulation, or law” to determine the allocation or denial of HUD funding. (See 42 U.S. Code §12711 – Protection of State and Local Authority; Cranston-Gonzalez Act). The myth that funding is dependent on the existence of policies that criminalize homelessness, is promoted by the out-of-state Cicero Institute, and shows that the bill’s champions lack the very expertise they claim to have.
This bill contains no actual support or guidance, it’s an unfunded mandate. The principles in this bill do not come from organizations or communities in North Carolina that are working to address homelessness in our state. The language and values in this bill come from an out-of-state conservative think tank with ties to private prisons, the Cicero Institute, that has spent the last several years spreading misinformation and inhumane policy ideas to legislative bodies across the country, claiming that it will address homelessness. In practice, these policies harm people experiencing homelessness, enrich the for-profit prison system, and enable politicians to declare quick “victories” over homelessness by temporarily disappearing the problem.
This bill will make homelessness worse. The root cause of homelessness is the lack of housing affordable to all North Carolinians. This bill does nothing to invest in the creation or preservation of housing, nor does it provide support for the mental health services supporters of the bill claim to value. Instead it places additional responsibility on already overburdened community providers and local governments. The false claims above and the bill’s contents came from people who do not understand or do this work or care for the North Carolinians they are claiming to want to help.
CALL TO ACTION
Reach out to your members today and ask them to sustain the HB437 veto. Tell them that HB437 will only make homelessness in North Carolina worse. By sustaining the veto, you say no to ineffective proposals from outside organizations. By sustaining the veto you are saying YES to the chance to develop and push forward real solutions that will actually house our neighbors and help our communities thrive. Sustaining this veto means telling the communities doing this work that their work matters, and that our general assembly believes there are real solutions we can work together on. We agree that encampments shouldn’t exist. What actually ends them is housing and support, not unfunded mandates, jails, or handcuffs.
Additional Talking Points: Click here for the sign on letter that received hundreds of signatures from individuals and organizations coming together to oppose HB437.
