---
title: "Unhoused Persons Bill of Rights"
identifier: "118-HRES-634"
congress: 118
bill_number: 634
bill_type: "HRES"
version_code: "ih"
version_type: "Introduced in House"
bill_url: "https://chamberzero.com/congresses/118/bills/hres/634"
source: "https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-resolution/634"
site: "Chamber Zero"
site_url: "https://chamberzero.com"
rendered_at: "2026-06-04T03:56:05.125Z"
---
Whereas there are currently between 582,000 and 1,500,000 unhoused individuals residing in the United States;Whereas the population of unhoused individuals in the United States is disproportionately comprised of Black, brown, and Indigenous people, women, children, veterans, undocumented immigrants, people with mental, developmental, and physical disabilities and substance use disorders, and members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, gender nonconforming, and queer community;Whereas older adults are the largest growing segment of the homeless population and nearly 40 percent of older Americans rely only on Social Security income in retirement, leaving housing stability out of reach for most older Americans;Whereas Black Americans make up more than 40 percent of the unhoused population, but represent 13 percent of the general population, and Indigenous people are similarly disproportionately overrepresented within the unhoused population;Whereas children under the age of 18 comprise almost 40 percent of the total unhoused population in the United States;Whereas 4,200,000 children and youth experience homelessness each year in the United States;Whereas 420,000 children are not connected with a school system because of homelessness each year in the United States;Whereas lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, gender nonconforming, and queer individuals, including children, are forced to accept inappropriate or unsafe accommodations to access publicly funded emergency shelters;Whereas survivors of domestic violence, partner violence, sexual assault, and stalking are faced with the impossible choice of living with an abusive person or becoming unhoused due to a lack of an adequate housing safety net;Whereas the root causes contributing to the unhoused crisis are poverty, a lack of affordable housing options, systemic racism, chronically low wages, underemployment and unemployment, gentrification, housing discrimination, mass incarceration, immigration status, criminalization of poverty, domestic violence, discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, gender nonconforming, and queer individuals, trauma, disabilities, personal and medical debt, a lack of affordable childcare, natural disasters, institutionalization, and unexpected loss of household income;Whereas in the wake of a deadly global pandemic and a compounding economic crisis that resulted in massive job loss, rates of housing insecurity have skyrocketed as millions of people across the Nation faced financial instability;Whereas the pandemic significantly increased the number of unhoused children and youth due to high unemployment, unstable living conditions, and job insecurity, leaving millions of children and youth vulnerable to criminalization, exposure to extreme weather, disease, malnutrition, mental and physical disorders, substance use disorders, sex trafficking, kidnapping, physical and sexual assault, and premature death;Whereas the Emergency Rental Assistance Program provided $46,000,000,000 to keep countless tenants housed during the COVID–19 pandemic, along with stimulus checks, expanded unemployment benefits, child tax credits, and increased Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program allocations;Whereas low-income renters face increasingly high rents and rising housing instability, and without the supports provided by pandemic-era benefit programs, safe, stable, and affordable housing remains out of reach;Whereas, since July 2009, Federal minimum wage has remained stagnant at an abysmal $7.25, forcing low-wage workers to work two to three jobs to afford housing and basic needs;Whereas, from 2009 to 2021, the median rent across the United States increased 42 percent, from $817 a month to $1,163;Whereas, according to the National Low Income Housing Coalition, in 2023 the housing wage, defined as an annual estimate of the hourly wage full-time workers must earn to afford a rental home at fair market rent without spending more than 30 percent of their incomes, was $28.58 per hour for a modest two-bedroom rental home and $23.67 per hour for a modest one-bedroom rental home;Whereas, in no State, metropolitan area, or county can a full-time minimum-wage worker afford a modest two-bedroom rental home, and a full-time minimum-wage worker cannot afford a modest one-bedroom rental home in more than 92 percent of United States counties;Whereas the gap between wages and housing costs is largest for people of color, and particularly women of color, as a result of decades of racist housing policies that have led to people of color facing disproportionate challenges accessing decent and affordable homes;Whereas lack of access to public restrooms, handwashing facilities, laundry facilities, showers, and garbage removal services severely deteriorates overall quality of life and greatly increases the chance of unhoused individuals contracting communicable diseases, impacting both housed and unhoused communities and threatening public health;Whereas health disparities significantly contribute to a broken social system that creates and maintains poverty, and the unhoused crisis is a public health crisis, resulting in unhoused persons suffering from significantly higher rates of chronic health conditions and premature death than housed persons, and vastly increasing the spread of communicable diseases throughout unhoused and housed communities;Whereas unhoused persons exhibit higher rates of depression, anxiety, psychological distress, physical health problems, substance use disorders, and mental trauma than housed persons, combined with increased difficulties in accessing health services due to a lack of stable living environment, functioning communication devices, physical distance, and knowledge of programs and procedures, among other structural barriers, thereby exacerbating the public health crisis;Whereas inadequate access to healthy, affordable, and fresh food options, and severe restrictions on the usage of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), and Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) benefits foster conditions of chronic malnutrition and food insecurity for unhoused persons, particularly youth, significantly weakening their ability to stave off infections and diseases and contributing to compounding public health crises;Whereas unhoused people lack the necessary stable, safe, and supportive environment to comply with treatment plans and heal from illnesses and are often prematurely discharged from medical facilities, thereby exacerbating existing medical conditions and hindering the recovery and treatment processes;Whereas, according to the National Coalition for the Homeless, human immunodeficiency virus/acquired immunodeficiency syndrome and the unhoused crisis are intricately related—as many as 50 percent of people living with human immunodeficiency virus/acquired immunodeficiency syndrome in the United States are at risk of becoming unhoused due to high medical costs and health-related job loss, and since human immunodeficiency virus/acquired immunodeficiency syndrome targets the immune system, unhoused people living with human immunodeficiency virus/acquired immunodeficiency syndrome do not have the ability to fight off disease due to factors related to malnutrition, access to hygiene facilities, and exposure to extreme weather conditions;Whereas the compounding physical and psychological trauma stemming from lack of access to housing, health care, safety, food, water, restrooms, showers, laundry facilities, electricity, internet, technology, property storage, and leisure, combined with exposure to extreme weather conditions, and higher rates of personal violence, including physical and sexual assaults endured by unhoused individuals, inevitably worsens the mental health of individuals and makes it more difficult to access permanent housing and employment, as well as social, medical, and mental health services;Whereas the criminalization of unhoused individuals and communities through the creation of State and local ordinances that ban panhandling, loitering, sleeping in tents or vehicles, eating in public, and third parties distributing food to unhoused people violates the basic human and civil rights of unhoused individuals to exist in public without fear of law enforcement surveillance, harassment, violence, destruction of property, fines, vehicle impoundment, or arrest;Whereas the vicious cycle of mass incarceration forces people to lose employment, homes, student loans, and financial assistance, and makes access to housing, gainful employment, education, and public assistance extraordinarily difficult for individuals reentering the community from the criminal and juvenile justice systems or with criminal records, thereby contributing to higher recidivism rates and exacerbating the unhoused crisis;Whereas unhoused individuals lack the resources necessary to obtain adequate legal representation and are often denied relief or damages through courts when they have been unfairly targeted by law enforcement officers, private businesses, property owners, or housed residents and have had their constitutional rights violated;Whereas encampment sweeps, evictions, and cleanups, the removal of outdoor living spaces, or impounding vehicles being used as residences exacerbates the complex issues faced by unhoused individuals and fails to address the lack of affordable and accessible housing options;Whereas neighborhood protection orders criminalize people without homes and needlessly bar individuals from accessing social services that will help them transition to permanent supportive housing;Whereas unhoused people are disproportionately impacted by the climate crisis because chronic exposure to climate induced extreme weather and disasters including hurricanes, wildfire, freezing temperatures, and extreme heat conditions leaves unhoused persons susceptible to hypothermia, hyperthermia, frostbite, sunburn, heat exhaustion, and death;Whereas hostile architecture and defensive urban design transform public spaces into impractical and unwelcoming environments for both housed and unhoused communities, by making benches thinner or with armrests to prevent laying down, building bus stops with no seating or shelter, deliberately placing gaps in awnings that allow in rain, adding rocks to parks, trails, and highway underpasses, installing devices that prohibit sitting, or adding spikes, rocks, or studs to flat surfaces to render them dysfunctional;Whereas the Department of Housing and Urban Development point-in-time method to count the number of sheltered and unsheltered individuals in the United States undercounts children, youth, older adults, and families by not accounting for individuals who fall in and out of homelessness throughout the year, people who are sheltered with family or friends, or individuals temporarily residing in hotels, motels, medical facilities, and jails, and is limited to a count one night per year during one of the coldest months;Whereas inadequate statistical methods for counting unhoused individuals severely limit the capacity of policymakers to develop accurate, data-driven legislation;Whereas the long-term solution for ending the unhoused crisis is a housing first approach that provides adequate, accessible, and affordable permanent housing for unhoused individuals, without preconditions and low or no barriers to entry, and permanently fosters conditions that prevent persons from becoming unhoused;Whereas rates of homelessness continue to rise, the overburdened repair backlog for public housing units is estimated at over $70,000,000,000, and the overburdened tenant-based "section 8" rental assistance program, also known as a housing choice voucher, is not funded by Congress at the level necessary to match the ever-increasing demand for housing assistance;Whereas emergency shelters, transitional housing programs, permanent supportive housing initiatives, and rapid rehousing programs are inadequately funded and unable to keep up with the constant demand to provide adequate temporary, transitional, or permanent housing for unhoused individuals;Whereas the cost of maintaining an unhoused population places undue financial burden on taxpayers of an amount between $30,000 and $50,000 each year for each chronically unhoused person because of the costs of incarceration, medical treatments, jails, detention centers, psychiatric and rehabilitation institutions, congregate shelter that does not lead to permanent housing, law enforcement costs of encampment cleanups and evictions, and the criminalization of unhoused people;Whereas there are nearly 16,000,000 vacant homes in the United States that are available to house individuals and families, and the cost to end the unhoused crisis is at least $20,000,000,000, nearly 2 percent of the 2024 fiscal year defense budget of $886,300,000,000;Whereas a lack of political will at the Federal, State, and local levels of government drastically restricts the amount of funding available for States, counties, cities, and municipalities to provide services and resources to unhoused communities; andWhereas addressing the roots of the housing affordability crisis requires a sustained commitment to investing in new affordable, accessible housing, preserving affordable rental homes that already exist, bridging the gap between incomes and rent through universal rental assistance, providing emergency assistance to stabilize renters when they experience financial shocks, and establishing strong renter protections: Now, therefore, be it
## SEC. 1 Short title.

[Read Section 1 →](/congresses/118/bills/hres/634/sections/1-section-one.md)

## SEC. 2 Establishing protections for unhoused individuals from violations of their rights.

[Read Section 2 →](/congresses/118/bills/hres/634/sections/2.md)

## SEC. 3 Actions in pursuit of protection of the rights of unhoused individuals.

[Read Section 3 →](/congresses/118/bills/hres/634/sections/3.md)

## SEC. 4 Reports to Congress.

[Read Section 4 →](/congresses/118/bills/hres/634/sections/4.md)