Hampton will vote Wednesday night to criminalize homelessness

Last year they tabled a similar effort. This week they'll vote on a revised ordinance.

Last summer Hampton, VA, considered an ordinance that would have made public camping in the city a Class 1 misdemeanor, punishable by up to a year in jail or up to a $2,500 fine, effectively criminalizing homelessness in the city.

After significant public outcry, they rightfully tabled that effort.

Tomorrow night, Hampton City Council will vote on a revised ordinance that still criminalizes homelessness, potentially leading to fines, jail time, and a criminal record for unhoused individuals.

The ordinance would make public camping a Class 4 misdemeanor for a first offense and a Class 2 misdemeanor for subsequent offenses—creating escalating criminal penalties for people who have nowhere else to sleep.

I wrote about last summer’s effort in a June 6 essay on Substack. You can read that essay here:

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Research shows that homelessness is caused by three intersecting sets of factors: structural issues like housing affordability and job availability, the presence (or lack) of a robust social safety net including housing and food assistance, and individual risk factors such as substance use and mental health.

Last summer when Hampton was first considering this ordinance, nearly half of working Hampton households were struggling to meet basic needs, and there was not one single census tract in the city where a full-time minimum wage worker could spend less than half their take-home pay on the typical rent.

And in the past year the Trump administration has taken a meat axe to the social safety net, and health care costs have skyrocketed for millions across the country.

I’ve heard city leaders argue that in most cases this ordinance wouldn’t lead to jail time or even fines. But that’s not the point. Criminalizing homelessness under the threat of fines and jail time empowers law enforcement to remove unhoused populations from just about any public space, whenever and wherever they want.

Remove them to where?

Criminalizing homelessness doesn’t solve any problem. It just pushes unhoused folks out of parks, off sidewalks, and out of public spaces and the public eye.

As U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in her dissent in Grants Pass v. Johnson, “Sleep is a biological necessity, not a crime. . . . For some people, sleeping outside is their only option.”

We should be investing in affordable housing, expanding shelter capacity, strengthening tenant protections, and supporting social services. Criminalization does none of that.

I recently wrote another essay about refusing paralysis. Here’s one way to act: call or email Hampton City Council members and tell them that criminalizing homelessness is just criminalizing the existence of the city’s most vulnerable population.

Make your voice heard by email (council@hampton.gov) or phone (757-727-6315).

If anyone else in your network might care about this issue, please consider forwarding this message to them. These kinds of decisions can happen quickly, so the more people who are paying attention, the better.