Maxwell Frost of Florida has introduced legislation aimed at preventing federal housing funds from being used to place people experiencing homelessness in detention-like facilities, intensifying a national debate over whether homelessness should be addressed primarily through housing or criminal enforcement.
Frost, a Democrat representing Florida’s 10th Congressional District, announced the No Homeless Detention Centers Act on September 2 alongside several Democratic lawmakers and housing and civil-rights advocates. The proposal would restrict federal funding for facilities used to confine homeless people against their will and prohibit the use of such facilities for forced labor.
Frost has framed the legislation as a response to what he describes as an expanding effort to treat homelessness as a criminal matter rather than a housing problem.
“There’s a growing effort in this country to treat homelessness like a crime instead of what it is: a housing crisis,” Frost said at the announcement.
The legislation comes amid a broader shift in how some states and municipalities are dealing with people living without permanent housing. In Florida, a 2024 state law restricted public sleeping and camping in many circumstances, part of a wider movement toward regulating homelessness in public spaces.
Frost has argued that such measures can deepen instability rather than resolve it. He has pointed to arrests involving people sleeping outdoors in Central Florida as evidence, saying enforcement does not provide people with the housing they lack.
The congressman has also drawn a connection between Florida’s policies and the possibility of creating facilities where homeless people could effectively be compelled to stay. Housing advocates supporting his bill have argued that if a person faces arrest for sleeping elsewhere, a supposedly voluntary shelter or camp can cease to function as a genuinely voluntary option.
The National Homelessness Law Center has criticized policies it says can push communities toward detention-style approaches. Its legal director, Eric Tars, told Florida Politics that Florida’s framework could create circumstances in which people have little practical choice between detention and designated facilities.
Frost’s position is part of a broader housing agenda. Earlier this year, he helped secure federal funding for community projects in Central Florida, including a $3 million request for the redevelopment and construction of a women and families homeless shelter in Orlando. Congressional records also list funding for housing-related projects in the region.
His office has also pursued legislation addressing housing affordability more broadly. In March, Frost introduced legislation designed to give residents of manufactured-home communities a greater opportunity to purchase their communities and protect affordable housing from institutional investors.
The latest bill, however, faces an uncertain path through Congress. Republicans hold majorities in both chambers, and no Republican lawmakers were listed among the initial sponsors when Frost announced the proposal. The legislation had 19 cosponsors according to congressional tracking information reported this week.
The debate reaches beyond party politics. Frost has acknowledged that Democratic-controlled cities have also adopted policies that criminalize or restrict homelessness, arguing that the issue should not be reduced to a partisan dispute.
For Frost, the central question is whether government responds to homelessness with housing and support or with arrests and confinement.
His legislation places that question directly before Congress at a time when communities across the United States are struggling with rising housing costs, limited shelter capacity and growing pressure to remove homeless encampments from public spaces.
The proposal does not itself create new housing. Instead, it seeks to establish limits on how federal housing resources can be used, particularly where people experiencing homelessness could be compelled into detention-like settings.
Whether Congress ultimately advances the measure remains uncertain. But Frost’s initiative places the Florida debate over homelessness at the center of a larger national argument about the role of government, public space and the right to shelter.
Maxwell Frost Moves to Block Homeless Detention Centers as Florida’s Housing Crisis Takes Center Stage
