Arizona voters have approved Arizona Proposition 312 to allow property owners to apply for a property tax refund to mitigate their costs incurred when a city or locality fails to enforce laws against vagrancy: “illegal camping, loitering, obstructing public thoroughfares, panhandling, public urination or defecation, public consumption of alcoholic beverages, and possession or use of illegal substances.”
The official ballot language further states: “Property owners would be eligible annually for refunds until the taxing entity begins enforcing the relevant public nuisance laws.”
As noted by Arizona-based think tank The Goldwater Institute, which designed the measure:
Sadly, Arizona has seen a massive surge in criminal activities associated with homelessness. These crimes include assault, vandalism, and the selling of illicit drugs, particularly fentanyl. Unfortunately, the response from cities such as Phoenix and Tucson has been a refusal to enforce the law. In fact, Phoenix’s inaction resulted in the largest homeless encampment in the country — The Zone in downtown Phoenix — where crime and health issues were so rampant the city had to be sued to clean it up.
The result of this refusal to enforce the law is that homeowners and business owners have not only been forced to pay for mitigation efforts themselves, they’ve also seen their property values plummet. Prop 312 remedies this situation by giving property owners back their tax dollars when cities fail to use those funds for their intended purpose: to protect residents from crime. Not only will this greatly help those most impacted by the homeless epidemic, it will also encourage municipalities to use our tax dollars appropriately.
In a statement Wednesday, The Goldwater Institute said:
Arizona voters have overwhelmingly approved Prop 312 at the ballot box, meaning relief is finally on the way for Arizonans hurt by government’s failure to address the state’s rampant homelessness crisis. Designed by the Goldwater Institute, this first-in-the-nation reform compensates Arizonans whose livelihoods are being destroyed as municipalities refuse to enforce the law.
“The voters sent a clear message this election cycle: they demand their tax dollars be used to enforce the law and address rampant homelessness,” Goldwater President and CEO Victor Riches said. “Now that Prop 312 is law, business and property owners will not be left holding the bag when municipalities refuse to do their job.”
Under Prop 312, property owners who have been forced to shoulder mitigation expenses due to a municipality’s purposeful failure to enforce nuisance regulations can receive a refund for damages up to the amount of their property tax liability.
The reform garnered a large coalition of support from residents, property owners, and business owners who have been hurt not only by their government’s failure to enforce the law, but by the government’s proclivity for shunting homeless people into unofficial open-air shelters like “The Zone” in Phoenix.
Joe and Debbie Faillace owned and operated Old Station Sub Shop in downtown Phoenix for nearly four decades until the deteriorating homelessness crisis forced them to sell the business. “We have felt that there is no other option for us because of what the government has forced upon us,” Joe and Debbie said.
“We had no clue what to expect when we would drive into work every morning. Many days we would arrive to find our shop (located in the heart of The Zone) broken into and vandalized, people passed out or overdosed on our patio, urine and feces scattered across our parking lot and entryway.” Prop 312, they added, “gives us hope that not only will the city of Phoenix not allow another ‘Zone’ to happen, but that even it does, the government will have to compensate small businesses like ours for failing to protect our rights.”
All around the state, local governments have spent months and years refusing to address their homelessness crises by enforcing the law. The result: law and order give way to death and destruction as violent crime, public drug use, and vandalism run rampant in these lawless homeless encampments.
If the government isn’t going to solve the problem, Arizonans need to take matters into their own hands. Now, they can.
Stay tuned for updates.
