{"id":10310,"date":"2023-03-29T20:19:11","date_gmt":"2023-03-29T20:19:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lonecandle.com\/?p=10310"},"modified":"2023-03-29T20:19:11","modified_gmt":"2023-03-29T20:19:11","slug":"homeless-encampments-and-the-debate-over-what-to-do-about-them-explained","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/?p=10310","title":{"rendered":"Homeless encampments \u2014 and the debate over what to do about them \u2014 explained"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\n\n“Unsheltered homelessness, meaning sleeping somewhere at night that\u2019s not primarily designed for human residence \u2014 like a car, a park, an abandoned building, or a train station \u2014 has risen sharply over the last seven years, and at a faster rate than homelessness overall. The unsheltered homeless now account for 40 percent<\/a> of all homeless people in the country, up from 31 percent in 2015<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While encampments are most common in big cities, on the West Coast, and in areas with high housing costs, tents have also sprung up in places where housing is broadly available and homelessness is going down \u2014 like Houston<\/a>, which saw a 63 percent drop<\/a> in homelessness since 2011 but still has hundreds of encampments throughout the region<\/a>.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“\u201cMayor [Sylvester] Turner believes addressing tent encampments is key to maintaining support for the housing-first model because the public didn\u2019t believe with their own eyes that homelessness was actually decreasing in the city,\u201d said Marc Eichenbaum, the special assistant to Houston\u2019s mayor on homeless initiatives. In the past few years, Houston leaders have \u201cdecommissioned\u201d 59 tent encampments, including the city\u2019s largest last month<\/a>. In Washington, DC, Mayor Muriel Bowser stressed that her support for encampment clearing was rooted<\/a> in her commitment to the housing-first model.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 \u201cI could build half a million units of housing,\u201d newly elected Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass told the Los Angeles Times<\/a>, \u201cand if there are still tents, people will not believe that you did anything except to steal their money.\u201d”  
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“researchers say the primary cause is a lack of affordable housing, stemming from both a shortage of units, and from rents rising faster than wages. They say encampments have also increased because people can\u2019t access shelter beds, or have objections to the requirements at local shelters, like the need to relinquish their pets and personal belongings. Other people see tentencampments as offeringmore opportunity for privacy and safetythanshelters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some encampments have established governance procedures and residents take on day-to-day responsibilities, while others are more informal and more fractious. Though inhabitants have a diverse range of ages, races, and gender, research suggests most tend to be men<\/a> with multiple barriers to housing like mental illness, a history of evictions, or a criminal record.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In recent years, court rulings have made it more difficult for cities, especially on the West Coast, to clear encampments. In 2018, the US Ninth Circuit Court found people experiencing homelessness can\u2019t be punished for sleeping outside on public property if there are no adequate alternatives available.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The decision only formally applies across the West<\/a>, in areas under the Ninth Circuit\u2019s jurisdiction, but when the US Supreme Court declined to hear this case, Martin v. City of Boise, <\/em>in 2019, cities nationally were left to debate<\/a> how they can respond to encampments in ways that will avoid new constitutional challenges. Boise<\/em> says that as long as sleeping indoors is not an option, \u201cthe government cannot criminalize indigent, homeless people for sleeping outdoors, on public property, on the false premise they had a choice in the matter.\u201d”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“City responses have typically fallen into four broad categories, ranging from quickly \u201csweeping\u201d the tents and providing no services to the unsheltered living there, to formally permitting people to camp out, and even providing bathrooms, areas to prepare food, and other social services. HUD research published in 2020<\/a> found the most common strategy cities have embraced was encampment \u201cclearance and closure with support\u201d \u2014 meaning deploying trained outreach workers to provide people with weeks of notice that their encampment would be shutting down, working to connect them with housing and services, and making longer-term storage of their belongings available.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Earlier studies have suggested that clearance with no support, or a so-called \u201ctough love\u201d approach, does little to drive people to shelters or mitigate the broader problem of encampments. Typically the homeless often just pick up and relocate somewhere else nearby. \u201cClearance with little or no support may actually reduce the likelihood that people will seek shelter because it erodes trust and creates an adversarial relationship between people experiencing homelessness and law enforcement or outreach workers,\u201d a HUD report published in 2019<\/a> concluded.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Amid growing community frustration, some leaders have started to pursue tougher measures on encampments, including ramping up criminal penalties on people pitching tents on public land. In at least half a dozen states, lawmakers have pushed bills based on templates<\/a> from the Cicero Institute, an Austin-based think tank opposed to housing-first<\/a>. The bills propose to permanently ban tent encampments and penalize cities that permit them.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

https:\/\/www.vox.com\/policy\/2023\/3\/8\/23618237\/homelessness-tent-encampments-housing-affordable<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“Unsheltered homelessness, meaning sleeping somewhere at night that\u2019s not primarily designed for human residence \u2014 like a car, a park, an abandoned building, or a train station \u2014 has risen sharply over the last seven years, and at a faster rate than homelessness overall. The unsheltered homeless now account for 40 percent of all homeless people in the country, up from 31 percent in 2015.
\nWhile encampments are most common in big cities, on the West Coast, and in areas with high housing costs, tents have also sprung up in places where housing is broadly available and homelessness is going down \u2014 like Houston, which saw a 63 percent drop in homelessness since 2011 but still has hundreds of encampments throughout the region.”<\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

“\u201cMayor [Sylvester] Turner believes addressing tent encampments is key to maintaining support for the housing-first model because the public didn\u2019t believe with their own eyes that homelessness was actually decreasing in the city,\u201d said Marc Eichenbaum, the special assistant to Houston\u2019s mayor on homeless initiatives. In the past few years, Houston leaders have \u201cdecommissioned\u201d 59 tent encampments, including the city\u2019s largest last month. In Washington, DC, Mayor Muriel Bowser stressed that her support for encampment clearing was rooted in her commitment to the housing-first model.<\/p>\n

\u201cI could build half a million units of housing,\u201d newly elected Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass told the Los Angeles Times, \u201cand if there are still tents, people will not believe that you did anything except to steal their money.\u201d” <\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

“researchers say the primary cause is a lack of affordable housing, stemming from both a shortage of units, and from rents rising faster than wages. They say encampments have also increased because people can\u2019t access shelter beds, or have objections to the requirements at local shelters, like the need to relinquish their pets and personal belongings. Other people see tent encampments as offering more opportunity for privacy and safety than shelters.<\/p>\n

Some encampments have established governance procedures and residents take on day-to-day responsibilities, while others are more informal and more fractious. Though inhabitants have a diverse range of ages, races, and gender, research suggests most tend to be men with multiple barriers to housing like mental illness, a history of evictions, or a criminal record.<\/p>\n

In recent years, court rulings have made it more difficult for cities, especially on the West Coast, to clear encampments. In 2018, the US Ninth Circuit Court found people experiencing homelessness can\u2019t be punished for sleeping outside on public property if there are no adequate alternatives available.<\/p>\n

The decision only formally applies across the West, in areas under the Ninth Circuit\u2019s jurisdiction, but when the US Supreme Court declined to hear this case, Martin v. City of Boise, in 2019, cities nationally were left to debate how they can respond to encampments in ways that will avoid new constitutional challenges. Boise says that as long as sleeping indoors is not an option, \u201cthe government cannot criminalize indigent, homeless people for sleeping outdoors, on public property, on the false premise they had a choice in the matter.\u201d”<\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

“City responses have typically fallen into four broad categories, ranging from quickly \u201csweeping\u201d the tents and providing no services to the unsheltered living there, to formally permitting people to camp out, and even providing bathrooms, areas to prepare food, and other social services. HUD research published in 2020 found the most common strategy cities have embraced was encampment \u201cclearance and closure with support\u201d \u2014 meaning deploying trained outreach workers to provide people with weeks of notice that their encampment would be shutting down, working to connect them with housing and services, and making longer-term storage of their belongings available.”<\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

“Earlier studies have suggested that clearance with no support, or a so-called \u201ctough love\u201d approach, does little to drive people to shelters or mitigate the broader problem of encampments. Typically the homeless often just pick up and relocate somewhere else nearby. \u201cClearance with little or no support may actually reduce the likelihood that people will seek shelter because it erodes trust and creates an adversarial relationship between people experiencing homelessness and law enforcement or outreach workers,\u201d a HUD report published in 2019 concluded.”<\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

“Amid growing community frustration, some leaders have started to pursue tougher measures on encampments, including ramping up criminal penalties on people pitching tents on public land. In at least half a dozen states, lawmakers have pushed bills based on templates from the Cicero Institute, an Austin-based think tank opposed to housing-first. The bills propose to permanently ban tent encampments and penalize cities that permit them.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[558,557],"class_list":["post-10310","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article-share","tag-homeless","tag-homelessness"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10310","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10310"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10310\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10311,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10310\/revisions\/10311"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10310"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10310"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10310"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}