Nora Grace-Flood file photo
Rolling up a mattress before bulldozers come in to demolish a Lamberton Street homeless encampment.
File photos
Garrett, Elicker: Neighbors, but not friends (at least in regards to H.B. 7033).
HARTFORD — New Haven and Hamden might be neighbors on a map, but at a Thursday hearing at the state Capitol, the two municipalities were far apart as their Democratic mayors presented dueling testimonies about a state bill on homelessness.
Hamden’s Lauren Garrett threw her support behind the proposal, which would bolster a homeless person’s ability to sleep on public land without fear of penalty.
New Haven’s Justin Elicker, meanwhile, came down hard on the bill, which he warned would allow for permanent encampments.
Garrett and Elicker went toe-to-toe on that proposed bill during a public hearing hosted by the Connecticut General Assembly’s Housing Committee in Hartford.
The proposal is called Raised House Bill (H.B.) 7033: An Act Prohibiting A Municipality From Imposing Any Penalty On Homeless Persons For Performing Life-Sustaining Activities On Public Land. Hamden Democratic State Rep. Laurie Sweet is a co-sponsor of the measure, which is still in the early phase of drafting and revision.
If passed as written, it would bar Connecticut’s 169 cities and towns from passing any law or taking any action that would infringe upon a homeless person’s right to engage in “life-sustaining activities” on public land without discrimination based on housing status.
The three-page bill defines “life-sustaining activities” as anything involving “moving, resting, sitting, standing, lying down, sleeping, protecting oneself from the elements, eating, drinking and storing such personal property as needed to safely shelter oneself.” The text contemplates decriminalizing these activities when they don’t obstruct foot or car traffic and when “sufficient adequate alternative indoor space” isn’t immediately available.
Connecticut lawmakers are considering the measure at a time when homelessness has skyrocketed in cities across the country in the midst of overlapping national crises downstream of the Covid pandemic, involving the impacts of wide-spread increased cost of living, mental health struggles, and substance abuse issues.
The legislative effort has also picked up steam in the wake of last summer’s U.S. Supreme Court 6 – 3 decision in City of Grants Pass v. Johnson, after which cities across the country regained expansive powers to impose civil and criminal penalties on homeless people and sweep encampments.
All the while, city and state government have removed a number of encampments across New Haven in recent years, often on the grounds that they represent a threat to public health and safety, or in response to neighbor concerns about unsightliness and infringement on shared use of public land.
On Thursday, Garrett and Hamden Legislative Council Member Sarah Gallagher linked their support for the bill to a desire to brace for the effects of the post-Grants Pass legal world and other “devastating economic policies coming out of Washington.”
They more directly tied S.B. 7033 to a resolution adopted earlier this year by the Hamden Legislative Council that declared housing a “human right” and that committed to scrapping “costly and counter-productive enforcement of civil and criminal penalties.”
“This resolution includes a commitment to avoid criminal or civil penalties for those experiencing homelessness,” Garrett said. “No one should be criminalized for being poor or homeless […] Arresting this population we are trying to help would only cause distrust and refusal of the services we are trying to provide, like finding housing, mental health supports, and meeting people’s basic needs.”
Gallagher added that, boosted by one-time federal American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds, Hamden is now working with New Haven and the Coordinated Access Network to deliver wraparound homelessness services and other related resources in the metro area.
Elicker followed Gallagher’s testimony — and offered a very different take on the bill.
He stressed that New Haven’s government agencies and eight shelters have been shouldering the service needs of people coming in from surrounding municipalities. He claimed that the bill as written would tie the city’s hands.
Elicker said that the city already does not impose criminal penalties and fines on its homeless population — though last October city police did make seven arrests of organizers with U‑ACT (Unhoused Activists Community Team) who had set up tents on the Green as part of a broader protest of encampment sweeps. Six of those arrestees were not homeless, and the group had set up the encampment-turned-occupation as an act of direct civil disobedience.
“Our outreach workers work very hard to provide solutions for those who are currently unhoused prior to removing tents,” Elicker said on Thursday. “But H.B. 7033 would effectively allow a single person to occupy public land that is meant to be available to all of the public and for themselves to set up camp anywhere on city or state land there indefinitely.”
Without substantial revision, Elicker said the measure should be “rejected.” In response, Monroe Republican State Rep. Tony Scott said that the committee, led by Democratic Bridgeport State Rep. Antonio Felipe, is “pretty much in alignment” with Elicker’s concerns about the “wording” of the bill. He suggested the bill would be redrafted in the coming weeks to prohibit the building of “permanent structures” on public land.