Texas Republicans this session are mounting a widespread campaign to crack down on squatting, filing more than a dozen bills that target people who settle on property without a legal claim.
But experts interviewed by the Houston Chronicle said that there’s little evidence that squatting is a widespread issue in Texas, let alone a growing threat to homeowners and tenants. And some of the bills under consideration this session could transform eviction law in the Lone Star State, making it much easier for landlords to evict tenants for late payments and put them at higher risk of chronic homelessness.
Squatting seized the attention of many right-wing leaders following several high-profile cases of people illegally entering and occupying homes or urging others to do so. On the campaign trail last April, Donald Trump blamed “radical Democrat lunacy” for the alleged rise in squatting.
“They want to squat into your home,” he said. “There’s now an epidemic of illegal squatters throughout our country, they are trying to steal American homes by exploiting Marxist laws in Democrat-run cities.”
But judges and eviction advocacy groups in Texas have said that squatting is exceedingly rare here. A representative with the Dallas Eviction Advocacy Center told the Chronicle that it has seen “fewer than 10 actual squatters” out of the 20,000 families it has worked with.
Sen. Paul Bettencourt, R-Houston, on Monday told the Senate State Affairs Committee that there are “as many as ten thousand” squatting cases in Texas, extrapolating from a Harris County constable’s testimony last year. Even at that level, that figure pales in comparison to the more than 300,000 households that are evicted each year, according to Texas RioGrande Legal Aid.
The state affairs committee on Monday heard testimony on Bettencourt’s Senate Bill 38, which would define squatting as a situation involving “nonpayment of rent” because he and its coauthors had difficulty defining the term otherwise in the bill. (Rep. Angie Chen Button, R-Garland, has filed an identical version of the bill in the lower chamber, House Bill 32.)
But tenant advocacy groups and lawyers sharply criticized that definition in testimony because it would classify any tenants who miss a rent payment as squatters, making it easier for their landlords to evict them with few legal protections.
If the proposal becomes law without changes, some tenants would find that they’ve had an eviction filed against them only after they lose their legal case, leaving them without a chance to defend themselves.
Other states have implemented anti-squatting laws that target squatters specifically, not just renters behind on payments. Florida and Georgia passed laws last year making squatting a criminal offense, while New York and West Virginia categorically separated squatters from tenants, who can be entitled to some protections and rights. Other measures are pending across the country.
Another bill being proposed by Sen. Bryan Hughes, R-Minneola, has introduced Senate Bill 1333, which would follow the structure of other states’s bills by specifically making squatting a criminal offense and empowering law enforcement to remove unauthorized occupants.
Eviction can have dire, lasting consequences for tenants, becoming part of their permanent records, Matthew Desmond found while researching his Pulitzer Prize-winning book Evicted. Many landlords require that applicants disclose past evictions and legally will deny them leases in favor of those with unblemished payment histories.
That often leaves tenants with an eviction record only able to live in undocumented and unsafe units without protections or to live on the streets. A study of Minneapolis found that 55% of tenants who were evicted entered a homeless shelter within three years. And a New York City study determined that 25% of evicted tenants there eventually landed in a homeless shelter.
Texas cities have noticed the proposal, especially as many are struggling to meet the needs of their existing homeless residents without potentially introducing more.
“I am concerned about evictions and that lawmakers could create unintended consequences that would lead to more homeless people,” Houston Mayor John Whitmire told the Chronicle in a statement.
The president and CEO of the Coalition for the Homeless of Houston/Harris County, Kelly Young, agreed.
“While not every family that is evicted falls into homelessness, more evictions inevitably lead to more homelessness,” she told the Chronicle.
