Texas Senate Bill 241 would push local authorities to enact stricter enforcement of a homeless encampment ban that’s already state law, while empowering residents to report municipalities they think aren’t cracking down hard enough.
SB 241, authored by Pleasanton Rep. Pete Flores, passed the Senate in April with a 22-8 vote largely along partisan lines. San Antonio State Sens. Roland Gutierrez, Judith Zaffirini, and Jose Menendez voted against the bill. However, San Antonio Republican Donna Campbell voted in favor.
The bill was referred to the House’s State Affairs Committee on April 22, where it now awaits a hearing.
Four years ago, Gov. Greg Abbott signed a bill into law making homeless encampments illegal in Texas, and the U.S. Supreme Court upheld it last summer. Additionally, San Antonio has an existing citywide ban on camping in public, which has been in place since 2005.
Despite the state law and similar local rules, encampments remain visible in major cities throughout Texas, including the Alamo City. Republican lawmakers, including SB 241 author Flores, maintain that’s because some local governments just aren’t enforcing the state ban.
SB 241 would enable local residents to file formal complaints about encampments they spot in the community. If the city or county doesn’t address their complaint within 90 days, the state attorney general would deem the municipality a “violating local entity” and use state authorities to clear the encampment on the city or county dime.
San Antonio already conducts six encampment abatements — or “sweeps” — daily, according to Department of Human Services (DHS) officials. However, with city shelters overrun, many living on the street have little choice but to set up camp somewhere else.
Camping in public is a Class C misdemeanor charge in San Antonio than can incur a fine of up to $500. Even so, the problem persists.
Last year’s Point-In-Time (PIT) Count tallied 3,398 people experiencing homelessness in San Antonio — the second highest homeless population of any city in Texas. The PIT Count tallies a rough estimate of the street homeless population as well as those staying in temporary shelters.
Without adequate affordable housing and permanent supportive housing, activists and some democratic lawmakers argue, the problem will persist even with ramped-up enforcement and a new state law.
When the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the decision to make homeless encampments illegal in Texas last summer, San Antonio Mayor Ron Nirenberg spoke out against the law, writing on X that it “paves the way for criminalizing homelessness.”
“Our unhoused neighbors need permanent supportive housing, access to health care, and to be treated with basic dignity,” Nirenberg tweeted. “We cannot arrest our way out of homelessness.”
Nonetheless, the city already averages over 1,100 citations per year for public camping, including 1,151 citations in 2022, 1,783 in 2023 and 1,219 for the first half of 2024 alone, according to a report by KSAT.
Subscribe to SA Current newsletters.
Follow us: Apple News | Google News | NewsBreak | Reddit | Instagram | Facebook | Twitter | Or sign up for our RSS Feed
Related Stories
Bad Takes: No, John Courage, homelessness isn’t ‘very easy’
Here’s what candidates in San Antonio’s mayoral race have to say about homelessness
Life on the Fringes: Counting San Antonio’s homeless encampments
Dems run down the clock to defeat Texas ‘SAVE’ act and Lege’s most-restrictive abortion bill
This article appears in Apr 30 – May 13, 2025.
