Homes -- Not "Sanctioned Encampments" -- Are the Solution to Homelessness
BY
Tyler Walicek, Truthout
PUBLISHED
August 2, 2021
The crisis of homelessness, already disastrous before March 2020, has been aggravated by the widespread unemployment, evictions and shelter closures resulting from the pandemic. The COVID-19 recession dealt enormous damage to the most precarious layers of the working class, and the July 31 expiration of the federal eviction moratorium promises to inflict yet more destitution. According to some projections, COVID will eventually produce homelessness rates double those of 2008’s Great Recession — with disproportionate impacts on people of color. Compounding the issue are disasters like the fires attributed to climate change that have struck the West Coast, which can rapidly render large populations unhoused and destroy already sparse housing stock. Individual causes of homelessness vary, yet, in all cases, the catalyst of the crisis has been the severe nationwide deficit of affordable housing and social services.
These compounding breakdowns have compelled local governments to explore alternative means of addressing homelessness. Some have extended a measure of tolerance toward select street camps, tacitly accepting their presence, and, on occasion, supplying basic provisions and services. At the same time, authorities have warmed to the concept of “sanctioned encampments”: small-scale communities of tiny homes, fenced-in tent cities or other unconventional shelters that make services and infrastructure available to residents, usually administrated by a public agency or nonprofit.
It’s true that such projects and policies have offered genuine (if marginal) relief, but the sanctioned encampment model is founded on restrictions that can replicate the same shortcomings that limit the effectiveness of traditional shelters. Just as concerning, local governments have been able to point to sanctioned camps as proof of their benevolence, while, outside camp borders, they pursue the same punitive methods they have long favored. Criminalization, punishment and forcible displacement (a.k.a. “sweeps”) are many authorities’ preferred means of appeasing businesses and homeowning constituents who find unhoused people distasteful, a nuisance or a threat to profits. However, these practices can generate public controversy and organized resistance. Sanctioned encampments can represent a way to thread this needle: doing something to placate homeless advocates, while maintaining social control of unhoused people.
Sanctioned encampments might appear at first glance to represent a reasonably humane middle route between guaranteed housing and full-blown rugged individualism. They can house (though some would say “warehouse”) people with relative speed, at low cost. The intentions of those who institute and operate them can be sincere and beneficent. However, in some contexts, we may find more nuanced motivations behind local governments’ rapid embrace of the model.
https://truthout.org/articles/homes-not-sanctioned-encampments-are-the-solution-to-homelessness/?eType=EmailBlastContent&eId=252bb7b8-e2c8-4a6c-9b2f-b31d7d452b39
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