Georgia lawmakers passed a bill early Friday that would let property owners file claims against local governments if they believe local officials failed to enforce bans on sleeping outdoors or failed to uphold rules requiring cooperation with federal immigration authorities.
If Republican Governor Brian Kemp signs it, individuals would gain the right to seek compensation from local governments for alleged drops in property value or costs tied to unenforced rules.
Those rules include bans on public camping, loitering, panhandling, and sanctuary-style policies limiting cooperation with federal immigration authorities.
Representative Houston Gaines, a Republican from Athens and a candidate for the US House, said local governments need to face consequences when they do not enforce the law.
He said homeowners and business owners should not have to absorb costs because a city or county fails to clear encampments.
Gaines said allowing illegal encampments, theft, and disorder to spread is not compassion. He called it neglect.
Democrats and homelessness advocates pushed back hard. They said the bill would drive police to arrest people for sleeping outside when they have nowhere else to go, and they warned it would invite flimsy lawsuits funded by taxpayers.
They also argued lawmakers should put money into housing and support services instead of jail, which often makes it harder for unhoused people to find work and stable housing later.
Jesse Rabinowitz, campaign and communications director at the National Homelessness Law Center, called the bill ineffective and cruel. He said it would make homelessness harder to solve and described it as a political move aimed at immigrant communities.
Lawmakers also added a late amendment allowing people to ask courts to order local governments to comply with bans on sanctuary policies.
State Senator Josh McLaurin, a Democrat, called the measure nuclear bad policy. He said cases built around lost property value would be tough to prove in court, especially when plaintiffs try to tie those losses to immigration or homelessness enforcement.
McLaurin said the bill would invite a wave of weak causation claims and turn courtrooms into a mess, draining judges’ time and juries’ time in the process.
Opponents also said local governments do not control who ends up sleeping outside on any given night.
Justin Kirnon, who works for the city of Atlanta, said at a committee hearing that the city has made substantial progress reducing homelessness, though people from outside Atlanta still come there because the city has more resources. He said homelessness is not something police can solve on their own.
Kirnon said a lot needs to happen on the issue, though this bill is not the right path. He also said it would turn a city’s general fund into a refund pool for property owners unhappy with law enforcement outcomes in these cases.
A 2024 Georgia law already requires local law enforcement to work with federal authorities to identify and detain immigrants in the country illegally or risk losing state funding. Since then, lawmakers have kept advancing related proposals.
Republican state Senator Clint Dixon said local governments weaken public safety when they choose ideology over enforcement. He said treating laws as optional sends the wrong signal.
Republicans moved Gaines’ bill forward last year, weeks after a man was crushed in his tent by a bulldozer during the clearing of a homeless encampment in Atlanta, though the measure failed to clear both chambers at the time.
The homelessness provisions in the bill came from proposals developed by the Cicero Institute, a Texas-based conservative think tank pushing encampment bans around the country.
