On any given night, about 4,000 Kentuckians are without permanent shelter. They may be crashed on the couch of a friend or loved one, asleep in a car or homeless shelter, or camped in some public place. The causes for homelessness can vary, ranging from a lack of affordable housing to personal hardships resulting from job loss, addiction, mental illness, or other challenges.
“I’d rather die than to live back on these streets because I know how people disrespect you,” says Angie Johnson, who spoke at a recent rally of housing advocates in Louisville. She found herself homeless in 2010 after losing two jobs. “They spit on you, they walk on you, they just treat you like you’re a piece of dirt.”
During the 2024 General Assembly session, lawmakers sought to address the problem of homeless in the commonwealth with provisions of House Bill 5, known as the Safer Kentucky Act, which makes it illegal to knowingly stay in a public place or private area with the intent to sleep. That includes sidewalks, parks, underpasses, roadside rights of way, doorways, or other areas meant for pedestrians or vehicles. Offenses by an individual after their first violation would be charged as Class B misdemeanors punishable with a fine of $250 and 90 days in jail.
Those for and against House Bill 5 agree the unhoused deserve compassion as well as shelter and support services, but they disagree on how the legislation will impact the problem. Supporters of the legislation say homelessness is a public health and safety issue that is increasing across the commonwealth. They contend homeless people do not have a right to sleep anywhere they choose, and that the threat of prosecution is needed to get some of these individuals into a shelter or treatment program.
“It does provide an incentive for people who are on the street to be a little bit less intolerant to the options that are out there,” says University of Kentucky Rosenberg College of Law Professor Paul Salamanca. “It says to the people if there are options, you should explore them, and it’s not an answer that you don’t like an option that’s out there.”
Opponents of the Safer Kentucky Act argue that the new law does nothing to address the root causes of homelessness and simply makes criminals out of already marginalized individuals.
“If you are unhoused, unsheltered, you have to sleep, and the only place to sleep is in public,” says Kungu Njuguna, policy strategist for the ACLU of Kentucky. “Are we really going to cite someone and put them into jail for that?”
“We need more housing, not handcuffs,” he says.
Factors Contributing to Homelessness in Kentucky
There’s been a 78 percent increase in homelessness since about 2018, according to George Eklund, director of education and advocacy for the Coalition for the Homeless in Louisville. He attributes that jump to a concurrent 58 percent rise in average rents. When housing prices and competition for available space increase, lower-income or marginalized individuals can have fewer or even no shelter options, Eklund explains.
“Homelessness is purely an economic issue where we are setting people up to fail at the lower end of the income spectrum,” says Eklund.
Housing vouchers can help low-income renters, the elderly, and the disabled pay for accommodations. But Section 8 housing options are also limited, and could become even more scarce under another recently approved measure. House Bill 18 prohibits local governments from mandating that landlords accept renters that pay with housing vouchers. Backers of HB 18 say the measure protects the rights of property owners.
Beyond a lack of affordable housing, homelessness can also result from poor mental health or an addiction. Although it can be difficult to get accurate statistics on the unhoused population, a recent count by the Kentucky Housing Corporation shows that about 37 percent of homeless individuals in the state have a severe mental illness or substance use disorder.
Fortunately, Kentucky ranks above many states in the number of residential treatment beds available for those with an addiction. But whether homeless people can access them is a different matter. Njuguna says there can be multiple barriers to recovery services, including available slots in that community, transportation to treatment, and insurance requirements.
Even if an unhoused individual can get into treatment and successfully complete it, they will likely face the same difficulty in finding a place to live. Homeless shelters are an option for some, but even there, space is limited. Eklund says 33 counties in Kentucky have no shelters.
Salamanca wonders if a lack of shelters in those places is actually a problem.
“Perhaps the reason that so many counties in Kentucky don’t have any active shelter programs is because they don’t need them,” says Salamanca. “It might well be that the problem of homelessness... in Louisville and Lexington is a function of the fact that they’re attractive places to be.”
As for Metro Louisville, Eklund says the city has 750 shelter beds, but averages about 1,600 homeless individuals each day. What’s more, Eklund explains, many shelters are open only at night, meaning people who sleep there must leave each morning. They also may not be able to stay with a spouse, partner, or older child of a different gender, and some shelters do not allow companion animals.
More Shelters and More Housing
So, what can be done to get homeless individuals off the streets and into permanent shelter?
“In order for us to really address the issue of homelessness in Kentucky, we really need to start delving into what does our (housing) supply look like – how do we increase affordable rental options here in Kentucky for everyone,” says Eklund.
He adds that creating more housing is different than simply providing additional shelter beds.
“Housing ends homelessness,” Eklund says. “Shelter is an intervention that is really about keeping somebody alive in that moment.”
Neither HB 5 nor the state’s budget bills included funding for affordable housing or more shelters. Richard Nelson, executive director of the Commonwealth Policy Center, notes Kentucky has received about $34 million from the federal government to tackle homelessness, but he wonders if those funds are used correctly.
“There’s been an argument made that the money is misaligned,” says Nelson. “The federal money is set up to go towards permanent housing instead of the temporary shelters, which is what’s needed right now.”
Nelson supports a provision of HB 5 that calls on municipalities to create designated camping areas for homeless individuals that include bathrooms, showers, police security, and support services. He contends these sanctioned encampments would be a better solution to people sleeping anywhere they choose.
“You shouldn’t be able to sleep on a sidewalk,” says Nelson. “It’s not dignifying to be exposed to the elements or to be vulnerable to assault, which homeless people are.”
Eklund says those camps could only be located in areas zoned for commercial or industrial use, which limits where they could be placed. Those sites might also be inaccessible to public transportation and social services.
“For me, a sanctioned encampment outdoors is an intervention of last resort,” says Eklund. “If we’re going to go through the steps of creating a sanctioned encampment, we might as well try to put that indoors where people are even more dignified to be out of the elements and we can keep them stable enough to get them into a housing program.”
The debate over HB 5 and its ban on street camping could become moot, depending on the outcome of a case before the United States Supreme Court. A decision in Johnson v. Grants Pass could determine whether fining and jailing someone for simply being homeless violates the U.S. Constitution’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment.
Until then, local law enforcement will be tasked with enforcing HB 5 while advocates for the homeless continue to find ways to help unhoused individuals. Whether it’s designated camps, more shelter beds, affordable housing and housing vouchers, or better support services, Njuguna says there is an obligation to minister to the needs of unhoused citizens in all Kentucky communities.
“The city has a responsibility to take care of the health and welfare of its citizens,” he says. “Our unsheltered brothers and sisters are a part of that community and so... we need to be making sure we’re taking care of them as well.”
