A Republican state senator from Mesa's personal experience with mental illness and homelessness derailed a bid by another GOP lawmaker, this one a former cop, to make sleeping on a sidewalk a state crime. Sen. David Farnsworth's extended comments about his struggles led the chairman of a Senate committee to pull Republican Fountain Hills Sen. John Kavanagh's proposal from consideration during a hearing this past week.

White dump trucks outfitted with City of Phoenix emblems and street sweepers lined the roads near the concentrated homeless camp dubbed, “the Zone,” this morning as part of their new “enhanced clean-up” effort in the area.  A federal judge allowed ...

Frank Urban and Faith Kearns, who used to be unsheltered, are co-plaintiffs in a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union and the Fund for Empowerment against the city of Phoenix, alleging constitutional violations and municipal liability for alleged “sweeps,” subsequent seizure of property and the use of city statutes, “criminalizing homelessness.”  

A woman who was arrested for feeding homeless people in northwest Arizona is suing over a local ordinance that regulates food-sharing events in public parks.

This summer was the deadliest on record for heat-associated fatalities in Arizona's largest county amid a growing wave of homelessness. Public health statistics this week confirmed a record 359 such deaths just days before the end of the six-month heat season.

Heat associated deaths in Arizona's largest county have hit a half-year record as more homeless people live unprotected outdoors in the arid desert while summer temperatures soar well into triple digits.

We don’t need rescuers and saviors to address homelessness and the housing crisis. We need courageous leaders who will listen to those with lived experience and people on the front lines. We need to implement evidence-based best practices and proven solutions.  

These people living in the streets are our neighbors, and we have a duty to treat them like neighbors. Trash and waste can be thrown away. Things that are broken can be replaced. But human lives that are lost on the streets of our city cannot be brought back.

Republicans are showing a new interest in addressing homelessness this session by supporting legislation previously championed by Democrats as five bills passed out of a Senate committee Tuesday, including one that could see $100 million put into the Housing Trust ...

A Senate bill could lead to converting a hotel into a shelter to cope with a growing population of homeless seniors in the West Valley.