New proposals to deal with homelessness drew heated debate in a state Senate committee Thursday, with supporters saying they’ll help get people off the streets and opponents saying it’ll do the exact opposite.
Republicans backed the proposals in House Bill 394, which contains two main policies addressing homelessness. They say the bill is needed to help get homeless people out of public spaces, and to help them get care in facilities without being targeted by drug dealers. Critics say the anti-drug piece of the law is so strict it’ll cause those treatment facilities to shut down, sending people back onto the streets and making homelessness worse.
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The bill has already passed the state House, with a handful of Democrats joining all Republicans in support. The bill could be voted on by the Senate next week after it passed its final committee hurdle Thursday.
One part of the bill would let people or businesses sue their local city or county governments for allowing homeless people to sleep in public places. The other part of the bill would ramp up criminal penalties for people who sell drugs near places meant to serve homeless people. It would also create a new crime, allowing for police to charge the people who operate homeless service groups with a felony if people are caught selling drugs in or near their centers.
Sen. Julie Mayfield, D-Buncombe, said it’s a terrible idea that will force groups helping people to close their doors permanently, rather than risk being sent to prison for trying to help people who are addicted to drugs. The bill, she said, seems well-intentioned yet written by “people who just are very disconnected from this problem.”
The bill’s sponsor, Rep. Heather Rhyne, R-Lincoln, took offense to that. She said she’s a pharmacist and knows about the problems drug addiction causes. She said she’s trying to help, by making it harder for drug dealers to target people who are homeless or on their way back up.
“Our homeless population is under regular threat of crime from those seeking to sell them controlled substances,” Rhyne said. “And this bill would reduce the opportunity for these criminals to victimize the homeless.”
Mayfield said it’s “folly” to believe that’s true. By threatening criminal charges against people who operate charities helping the homeless, she said, that will simply cause those centers to shut their doors for good and end all the work they’d been doing.
'More damage than help'
Mayfield added that in her home of Asheville, local groups that would be affected by this bill are serving around 80 people who have gotten off the streets and are in their care, where they receive housing as well as services such as mental health help. If this bill becomes law and if they shut down because of it, she said, that’ll just mean 80 more people who are made truly homeless once more — turned back out onto the streets, and possibly causing more problems for local police officers, businesses, emergency departments and others.
“This does not seem like the right solution,” Mayfield said. “This seems like it will do much more damage than help. There is help in these facilities, and in these communities, for people who want it. There is lots of support, and people are improving their lives and moving forward. For the few that continue to struggle with addiction, this is not going to help them. This is going to penalize everybody in that community because of a few people.”
Rhyne again disagreed. Drug dealers are drawn to these types of programs, she said, because they know they’ll find easy targets. She said it’s almost down to a science; they even schedule trips based on when disability checks get mailed out. The criminal penalties threatened against charity operators are intended to motivate them to make sure that doesn’t happen on their watch.
“The dope men know when the [Social Security and disability] checks hit and take advantage of these residents,” Rhyne said. “So that is what we're trying to prevent in this bill. There are people there who are trying to get back up on their feet. We're trying to help them do that, without being victimized and preyed upon by those who are trying to sell them narcotics.”
She was backed up by Sen. Michael Lazzara, R-Onslow, who said he has worked with locals in the Jacksonville area struggling with family members who fell into drugs and homelessness. They’ll spend their life savings trying to help get their loved one back on the right track, he said, and sometimes after rehab things are looking up — until they leave rehab and find themselves at one of these facilities, tempted yet again by easy access to drugs.
“They get to these facilities, and they’re traps,” Lazzara said. “They have more drugs there than they have on the street. This is absolutely needed.”
As Mayfield warned of more people being turned out of temporary housing and forced back out onto the street because of the bill, the bill’s sponsors said that’s another problem they want to fix. Cities such as Asheville have done a poor job stopping people from sleeping in public parks and sidewalks, said Sen. Brad Overcash, R-Gaston, although he noted Asheville is far from the only place with a homeless problem.
“We have a problem across North Carolina,” Overcash said. “It's hitting our large cities and our small cities. It's a public safety problem. It's a humanitarian crisis for our homeless citizens. And what this bill will do is cause local governments to not permit public camping — sleeping on a regular basis anywhere in the public. On public property, on public right of way, public sidewalks, or in and around public buildings.”
The bill wouldn’t specifically require local police officers to do anything different. But if they don’t do a good enough job clearing homeless people out of public areas, the bill would allow local businesses and residents to sue, and have a judge step in to order something be done.
ABC reforms
Lawmakers also debated a number of other provisions Thursday, including changes to revenue laws, beach parking, state government HR rules and more. One that drew particular attention proposed changes to the state’s liquor laws.
The Senate on Thursday voted 36-6 to pass House Bill 198, a 39-page bill that would loosen the state’s liquor laws in a number of ways: from allowing more tastings to authorizing the sale of alcoholic whipped cream. Some of the changes are minor, allowing practices that might already occur throughout the state but aren’t specifically authorized by state law.
For instance, the bill would allow people to buy up to two mixed drinks at a time from a bar or restaurant, rather than one. The bill would also allow people to take mixed beverages into a business inside a municipality’s social district, even if that business isn’t permitted to sell mixed beverages.
Another change would expand the number of products at ABC stores. For instance, it would allow whipped cream containing at least 0.5% alcohol by volume to be sold. State law currently allows for the sale of alcoholic ice cream, ice pops, and gelatin-based products — but the law is silent on alcoholic whipped cream. The bill would also allow the state’s ABC Commission to borrow up to $310 million to expand its warehouse.
Sen. Jim Burgin, R-Harnett, said he opposed the bill because he thinks North Carolina should privatize liquor sales. “If we could get a private enterprise to invest that money for the warehouse and any other things they need, why wouldn't we do it?” Burgin said. Supporters of North Carolina’s state-run system for liquor sales say it helps regulate alcohol consumption while generating revenue for state and local governments.
The House of Representatives needs to approve the senate’s changes to the bill in order for it to go to Gov. Josh Stein. House members have been reviewing a separate proposal to loosen liquor laws: House Bill 921. It includes some of the same ideas the Senate approved Thursday, such as the proposal to allow people to purchase more than one drink at once. House Bill 921 would also allow grocery stores to sell remixed cocktails — also known as canned cocktails — so long as they contain less than 10% of alcohol by volume. Canned cocktails are currently only sold in state-run liquor stores.
House and Senate members will likely discuss the bills privately before voting to send a list of proposed liquor-related law changes to Stein, Senate leader Phil Berger, R-Rockingham, told reporters Thursday.