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Seattle Congresswoman and Squad grandmother Pramila Jayapal introduced legislation that would bring Seattle’s failed homelessness policy nationwide. She’s counting on left-wing media to pretend her idea is a good one. We should quash that notion immediately.

There’s a certain kind of progressive politician who excels at performance art. They introduce radical legislation they know has zero chance of passing, not to solve a problem but to signal their unwavering commitment to a fringe activist base. Jayapal is a master of this craft, and her latest “masterpiece” is the “Housing Not Handcuffs Act of 2025.” It is a perfect example of frivolous, dangerous virtue signaling that reminds us that she’s a completely unserious lawmaker.

There’s a reason Jayapal doesn’t have a noteworthy legislative accomplishment she’s known for. Her new bill isn’t a serious attempt to address homelessness. It’s merely a legislative fantasy that would effectively legalize homeless encampments across the entire country, exporting the chaos of Seattle to every town and city in America. It’s a policy that chooses ideology over results, and it would be a disaster.

The bill would legalizing homeless encampments nationwide

The prohibits any federal agency from imposing a penalty on a homeless person for engaging in “life-sustaining activities” on “public land.” Sounds reasonable until you read the definitions. The bill defines “life-sustaining activities” as including “moving, resting, sitting, standing, lying down, sleeping, protecting oneself and personal property from the elements, eating, and drinking.”

In other words: setting up a permanent, sprawling encampment would be legalized on federal land. It would include dangerous, broken-down RVs that homeless people live out of.

And where can these encampments be established? The bill’s definition of “public land” is so expansive it’s almost comical. It includes “plazas, courtyards, parking lots, sidewalks, public transportation facilities and services, public buildings, underpasses and lands adjacent to roadways, and parks.” Your local post office parking lot? Fair game. The sidewalk outside your child’s school would become a federally protected campground.

The bill essentially erases the line between public space and private shelter, handing our communities over to the whims of drug addicts who refuse help.

The legislation offers a laughably and intentionally hollow exception. Homeless encampments can be prohibited if an “adequate alternative indoor space” is available. But the National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty, the activist group that actually forwarded this bill for Jayapal, made sure that standard is impossible to meet. The shelter must be free, allow indefinite stays, and accommodate a person’s “partner(s),” pets, and all possessions, regardless of their condition.

It’s a unicorn, a mythical standard designed to ensure no alternative is ever deemed “adequate” so that Jayapal and her progressive friends can keep people out on the streets where they are destined to die.

Do you want to nationalize Seattle homeless policies?

This is the Seattle model of homeless policy, a failed experiment that has turned the city into a cautionary tale.

We’ve seen what happens when you replace enforcement with enablement. It doesn’t lead to fewer people on the streets. It demonstrably leads to more crime, more open-air drug use, and more human misery. Jayapal’s bill would take this local disaster and make it a bigger national crisis, styming local officials who have made progress with their carrot and stick approach. Jayapal’s bill does nothing to address the root causes of homelessness—the rampant addiction and severe mental illness that plague our streets. It simply tells people they have a “right” to live and die in squalor. That’s ³§±ð²¹³Ù³Ù±ô±ðÌýcompassion, and it’s deadly.

Putting someone who is in the grips of a fentanyl addiction or a psychotic episode into a tent on a sidewalk abandons our most vulnerable, while sacrificing the safety and livability of our communities for everyone else.

Should we look to a politician from a city that is failing at addressing homelessness for direction on fixing homelessness? If we are serious about solving homelessness, we need to abandon these progressive fantasies and embrace an approach that actually works: a combination of compassion and accountability. A carrot and a stick.

Carrot-and-stick

The carrot is a robust, on-demand treatment. We need a system where anyone struggling with addiction or mental illness can get help the moment they need it. No waiting lists, no bureaucratic hurdles. We should have outreach teams connecting people with services, and we should invest in long-term treatment facilities, mental health institutions, and job training programs that give people a real path off the streets.

But compassion must be paired with a stick. We must consistently enforce our laws, which will help encourage the homeless into finally saying yes when services are offered. Now, they can simply say no and be left alone for months on end.

It is not compassionate to allow someone to illegally camp, smoke fentanyl in public, and commit crimes to feed their habit. We must make it clear that while help is available, living in a public park, on a sidewalk, or in a post office parking lot is not an option. This pressure — the choice between accepting help or facing legal consequences—is often the only thing that can break through the fog of addiction. And involuntary commitment laws are necessary to help those living with severe mental illness.

True compassion for the homeless

This approach isn’t about punishment as much as it’s about intervention. True compassion means doing what is best for someone, not just what they want in the moment.

Pramila Jayapal’s bill is another declaration of surrender. She’s given up because doing the work to help the homeless is both too hard and in conflict with her ideological agenda. It gives up on the homeless, and it gives up on our cities. A reality-based approach that offers real help, demands accountability, and restores order to our streets is the only solution.

Jayapal’s bill is very obviously not the answer, especially since her ideologically-driven policies have made the problem worse.

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