A new bill going through the Iowa legislature on March 5 and 6 would affect homelessness and homeless shelters.

Supervisor Rod Sullivan announced the House legislature passed a new bill that would require all cities and counties to establish a designated camping area for the homeless. The bill failed to pass the Senate subcommittee, however, but could still be passed in the future.

Sullivan stated rules about what could take place there, how the areas would be monitored, and how data would be collected.

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For homeless shelters, anybody who is found under the influence of drugs while in the facility will cause the shelter to lose all state money for three years, and staff would be held criminally and civilly liable.

A 300-foot zone would be placed around any shelter where drug activity was found to have taken place, and the said shelter would be held liable.

“There are all kinds of civil liberty issues there,” Sullivan added. “This has law enforcement kind of apoplectic.”

Supervisor V Fixmer-Oraiz expressed concerns about the bill, stating they are worried about privacy in the shelters and that divulging the names of people using the shelters would violate their privacy.

“The posting of these zones, all I can think of is nimbyism. We have a lot of housing services that are embedded in neighborhoods for a reason,” Fixmer-Oraiz said. “It’s criminalizing homelessness. [This law is] vaguely written and incredibly dangerous to our residents.”

Fixmer-Oraiz also stated nonprofits are not pleased with this bill after receiving an extensive list of concerns from various coalitions.

“Everyone is really upset about this,” they added.