State legislatures seem to be obsessed with squatters these days — and the corporate-dominated American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) has played a major role in advancing legislation to crack down on them.
As homelessness reaches record highs and over 21 million households nationwide spend more than 30 percent of their income on rent, state legislators have decided what the problem is. It’s not that there are an estimated 1.4 million abandoned residential properties in the U.S., or that private equity landlords have gobbled up over 10 percent of the country’s apartments. The problem is the people who take up residence in empty properties or overstay in apartments after being invited in tenants who have left — despite little evidence of an increase in squatting.
After five states (Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Tennessee, and West Virginia) enacted new laws last year criminalizing squatting and adopting expedited procedures for removing squatters, ALEC adopted a model Stop Squatters Act in July 2024 that seeks to accomplish the same goal.
Legislation closely tracking — or in some cases exceeding — ALEC’s model was enacted into law in 10 states this year (Arkansas, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Mississippi, Montana, Texas, and Wyoming, with Florida and West Virginia adding to what was already passed last year), and in six of those an ALEC state chair was the author, lead sponsor, or cosponsor of the bill.
The new laws create real risks that housing-insecure people will get further caught up in the dragnet of criminalization, with fewer legal protections, advocates say.
ALEC-aligned legislators argue that squatting provides a false solution to homelessness as housing costs explode. Just as concerning, they used the anti-squatter push in Texas to unsuccessfully advance a broad-based attack on the rights of tenants, and in Maryland, to successfully push back against Good Cause Eviction reforms.
Critics say the legislation is a solution in search of a problem.
“There’s no real evidence of any significant squatting crisis despite what the industry claims,” says Eric Dunn, director of litigation at the National Housing Law Project (NHLP). “One of the industry lobbying groups surveyed their members and found that there were 1,200 cases of squatting in Atlanta -– but you can’t see the survey results, just their report on it.”
The survey numbers are based on an indeterminate number of years, and there is no indication of a trend as this was the first time the rental industry conducted a survey on the issue. It is also unclear how the survey defined squatting.
Either way, the result of the legislation will be to increase dangerous encounters between police and tenants, Dunn argued.
“No matter who you are, if you’re a tenant or a squatter, you don’t want the police knocking on your door,” he said. “It’s just a recipe for more dangerous encounters between people and police.”
ALEC’s Model Anti-Squatter Bill
The legislative push has been driven by ALEC and the Pacific Legal Foundation (PLF), an affiliate of the right-wing State Policy Network. Originally founded in 1973 as the Conservative Caucus of State Legislators, ALEC has grown to become one of the leading drafters of state legislation across the U.S., a pay-to-play clearinghouse for corporate interests to advance their agenda — with particular efficacy in red states.
The model legislation was released in conjunction with a report by the PLF entitled “Locking Squatters Out,” which cited a 2023 survey of landlords by the National Rental Home Association that found a post-pandemic jump in “squatting” cases in Georgia, and an increase in New York since 2020.
ALEC’s model bill distinguishes between tenants and squatters, but provides no protections for family members of tenants, and provides no opportunity for a court hearing prior to removal. Once a property owner files a complaint, law enforcement is required to issue a “notice to immediately vacate” and “put the owner in possession of the real property” if “preliminary fact-finding” supports the owner’s claim.
ALEC does not disclose its funders. The pro-landlord California Association of Realtors Mobilization PAC gave the PLF a $150,000 grant in 2023. In the past, the group’s biggest funders have been the Charles Koch foundations and the right-wing Searle Freedom Trust, which also donate heavily to ALEC.
At a meeting in December 2024, an ALEC official trumpeted the anti-squatter bill as one of the group’s top priorities for 2025. And in Arkansas, Indiana, and Montana, staff for the PLF testified in favor of anti-squatting legislation. In Florida, the Koch-backed Americans for Prosperity (AFP) lobbied in favor of one of the bills.
The following is an overview of legislation aligned with ALEC’s model bill that passed in the 2025 session.
Arkansas
Arkansas passed HB 1049, “A Bill To Amend Arkansas Law Concerning Criminal Offenses; And To Criminalize Unlawful Squatting,” which was signed into law by Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders (R) on March 4, 2025, with no exclusion for family members of former tenants. Sanders said on Facebook that, “In Arkansas, we protect property owners and now allow law enforcement to kick squatters off their property.”
Jeff Rosenzweig, an attorney in Little Rock, testified against the legislation, warning lawmakers that the way it was written will lead to catching “people that I don’t think [the lead sponsor] was trying to catch, but because it’s a criminal statute I think we need to fix that … with just dropping the relevant criminal trespass defenses into the bill.”
The bill was cosponsored by State Representative David Ray (R-69), who is one of ALEC’s Arkansas state chairs.
Florida
Under the leadership of Governor Ron DeSantis (R), Florida pioneered the anti-squatter push, passing an anti-squatter bill (HB 621) in 2024. This legislation was more expansive than the ALEC model bill in that there is no requirement for a sheriff to perform an investigation prior to evicting the occupant if the owner attests to a list of facts.
Florida doubled down this year, passing SB 322, expanding the squatter bill to include commercial real estate property and permit the use of force, and SB 606, authorizing the immediate removal of transients and unwanted guests from hotels, motels, and food service establishments.
“Florida doesn’t tolerate squatters; we stand with property owners,” DeSantis said in June.
Cynthia Laurent, the housing justice campaigner at the advocacy group Florida Rising, stated that the two pieces of legislation are just another way to further tilt the state’s laws in favor of landlords and against tenants.
“What they are doing is amplifying … [a] very few small examples of people who have dealt with the issue of squatting,” Laurent told the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD). “Legislators say, ‘This is for property rights, this is for public safety.’ But the true public safety solution is to make sure that folks are safe and secure in their housing.”
Laurent sees the anti-squatter push as part of a broader effort to crack down on tenants’ rights that is increasing homelessness in Florida.
In the aftermath of the pandemic, Florida Rising and other pro-tenant organizations had won Tenants’ Bills of Rights and Offices of Tenant Advocacy in various Democratic-leaning Florida cities, Laurent explained. But those wins were blocked — “preempted” — by the Florida state legislature. ALEC has also been deeply involved in promoting preemption legislation.
“There’s skyrocketing insurance costs in Florida due to disasters,” which pushes people out of home ownership, Laurent pointed out. The situation for renters is equally bad. ”Since the pandemic there has been an increase in private equity coming into the state purchasing homes to rent them out and make profit that way,” she said. “It was revealed that landlords were colluding in setting prices artificially high using platforms like RealPage, those renters were then forced into a motel/hotel lease [and] technically … designated as transient.”
By expanding the squatter legislation to motels and hotels, Florida Republicans are trying to claw back some of the last housing security there is, as motels and hotels will not sign leases for longer than 30 days, Laurent concluded.
Indiana
In May, Indiana Governor Mike Braun (R) signed SB 157 into law, which is similar to the ALEC model legislation except that it exempts “invitees” of former tenants and does not require any fact-finding before removal. The bill was sponsored by State Senator Linda Rogers (R–11), who is an ALEC state chair.
Indiana Legal Services warned that the way the bill was written, “[Landlords] file a statement with law enforcement and the police can remove people without a hearing or judicial review.”
Kentucky
Governor Andy Beshear (D) signed HB 10 into law in Kentucky in March. Similar to the ALEC model bill, it provides protections only for immediate family members of the owner but not immediate family members of tenants, with the only remedy being for a removed occupant to sue in civil court.
Maryland
Maryland legislators introduced SB 46, a draconian version of the ALEC model bill, in January. It was cosponsored by State Senator Justin Ready (R–05), one of ALEC’s state chairs in Maryland. As introduced, the bill would have required a sheriff to remove anyone from any property based solely on an owner’s affidavit that they were “fraudulently in possession of the property,” with no protections for tenants, former tenants, or their family members.
Thanks to pushback from housing groups, the bill was amended to mandate that courts hold a hearing within 10 days if a landlord alleges squatting. However, Zafar Shah, a housing attorney with Maryland Legal Aid, said that this bill still filled an extremely important purpose for the landlord lobby. Advocates had been pushing a broad-based reform to the eviction process, mandating that landlords have legal good cause prior to evicting a tenant. The need to ensure that the squatter bill didn’t short-circuit the existing eviction process helped contribute to the good cause legislation stalling.
“The whole legislature, left and right, is really backtracking on the right to housing,” Shah told the Center for Media and Democracy. “The ‘stop squatters’ push is a part of that.”
Mississippi
In April, Governor Tate Reeves (R) signed the Real Property Owners Protection Act (HB 1200) into law in Mississippi. The bill contains no exemptions for immediate family members of tenants who remain after a lease has ended. The bill was cosponsored by State Representative Lee Yancey (R–74), another ALEC state chair.
Montana
Montana Governor Greg Gianforte (R) signed a bill (SB 101) in April that closely hews to ALEC’s model legislation by making squatting a crime and allowing property owners to request that law enforcement officers remove any unauthorized person.
Amy Hall, the supervising attorney for housing with Montana Legal Services, was perplexed by the legislation. “I have not seen any clients who have contacted us because they’re being removed as a squatter. Squatting is just not a huge issue in Montana,” Hall said. “As far as I’m concerned, this whole bill was 100 percent unnecessary.”
Jim Manley, PLF’s vice president for legal affairs, testified in favor of the bill.
North Carolina
In July, North Carolina Governor Josh Stein (D) vetoed a squatting bill (HB 96) that is similar to the ALEC model bill but with expanded protections for due process — effectively a substantially expedited eviction process — despite initially supporting the legislation. Stein stated that the only reason he had vetoed it was because it contained a provision that blocked municipalities from regulating puppy mills, an unrelated addition made to the squatter bill once it reached the state Senate.
Texas
As in Maryland, ALEC legislators in Texas sought to use the squatting issue to weaken tenants’ rights. State Senator Bryan Hughes (R–1), an ALEC member, authored a bill (SB 1333) that went beyond the ALEC model by allowing immediate removal of “unauthorized occupants” (without any opportunity for a hearing) based on an owner’s “verified” petition, and by making squatting a felony if the owner’s loss is $2,500 or more. Like the ALEC model, the law provides protections only for immediate family members of the property owner, not the tenant.
ALEC’s Texas Senate chair, State Senator Paul Bettencourt (R–7), authored a second bill (SB 38) framed as anti-squatter legislation that would have created a streamlined eviction process without a hearing or trial for tenants and squatters alike.
“What the Texas Apartment Association was trying to do was to piggyback on the attention on squatting to pass really radical anti-renter legislation in Texas,” Ben Martin, the research director of the pro-tenant group Texas Housers, told the Center for Media and Democracy. “One person who gave testimony from a landlord perspective stated that, ‘From our point of view, a holdover tenant is a squatter.’ What they were seeking was a top-to-bottom rewrite of civil law in Texas to favor landlords at the expense of tenants.”
Advocates won an amendment to Bettencourt’s bill that limited the expedited removal process to squatting cases only.
Both bills were enacted in May and signed by Governor Greg Abbott (R).
State Senator Molly Cook (D–15), who opposed both bills, told CMD that, “As an ER nurse, I’ve seen how housing insecurity leads to poor public health. There’s been a confluence of awful policies that has led to the worst housing inequality we’ve ever seen. There is a way to make sure that everyone is taken care of. Just slapping ‘squatter’ on a bill that erodes protections for due process is not the right approach. [In Texas] it is a lot easier to get a criminal penalty passed than to get real policy passed that addresses homelessness.”
West Virginia
On the heels of criminalizing squatting through HB 4940 last year, the West Virginia legislature enacted HB 2434, a very similar version of ALEC’s model bill, in April. Traci Strickland, executive director of Kanawha Valley Collective, which seeks to end homelessness, told CMD that “it’s a bill with no solution. I don’t want people squatting in houses either. I want a housing solution for people. Tickets for squatting means you’re just going to have people who are racking up tickets and criminal offenses, which then hurts their housing and employment opportunities once we get them on the pathway to housing.”
Wyoming
Wyoming’s legislature passed a law (SF 6) in February that is very similar to ALEC’s model bill. It provides for immediate removal of an “unauthorized person” with no opportunity for a hearing and does not exclude immediate family members of tenants, only offering protections for immediate family members of owners.
The bill was introduced by the House Judiciary Committee, which includes one of ALEC’s state chairs, State Representative Daniel Singh (R–61).
Colleen Scerpella and Arn Pearson contributed research to this article.
More from Rolling Stone
Best of Rolling Stone
Sign up for RollingStone's Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
Comments