The Tent City Debacle: Sanction or Remove?

by Shannon Moriarty

Published March 23, 2009 @ 08:21PM PT

Let's get hypothetical, shall we? Pretend for a moment that you're the mayor of Sacramento. Like any other city, you're dealing with your share of an ugly financial situation, growing unemployment, and a housing crisis. But to make matters worse, you have a PR nightmare on your turf.

On the outskirts of your city there lies a growing encampment of newly homeless people that has attracted international media attention (including a visit from the Terminator himself). In fact, your city's tent city has been dubbed the "face of the American economic crisis."

Ouch. 

So what's a mayor to do? Take the people out of tent city? Or take the "tent" out of the "tent city" by enforcing rules and ordinances to maintain sanitation and order? 

Clearly, this is an unenviable position. By anybody's standards, removing these people from tent city squalor through rapid rehousing is the most desirable option. Send in case workers to locate decent, affordable housing. At the same time, connect these folks with appropriate services (job training, substance abuse counseling, child care, etc.) to ensure long-term financial independence. 

But this approach has a few problems. First, it assumes that a decent, affordable housing stock is readily available. Unfortunately, that's not the case. According to the NY Times blog, the vacancy rates in Sacramento are higher than the rest of the country: 10.4 percent of rental housing units are vacant and 4.8 percent of owned units are vacant. According to city officials, much of this housing is privately owned and impossible for the city to secure. 

While housing is the solution to homelessness, it is just one piece of the puzzle for achieving financial independence. People in housing need money for food, utilities, transportation, and rent. Without any jobs for these tent city residents, any housing secured will hardly be sustainable. In other words, you can take the people out of tent city, but this won't reverse the tide that created it in the first place. 

So this brings us to option number two: sanction a designated area as a campground for the homeless. In other words, legalize the tent city. This would involve providing "sanitation services." Creating ordinances, such as bans on alcohol and drugs. Ensuring a steady flow of food, clean water, and case workers to help residents transition out of tents and into real housing. Allowing homeless people a place to leave their things where they won't be confiscated or destroyed.

But not everyone is so keen on this plan. According to Robert Tobin, the director of a homeless service organization in Sacramento, legalizing a tent city may be pitched as a temporary solution, but this is hardly the case: 

Saying tent cities would be a "temporary" response ignores decades of experience with "emergency" shelters and other not-so-quick-fix homeless remedies. Trailers put on school playgrounds were once called "temporary" classrooms until they became "portables" even though they never move. It will be the same with tent cities and for many of the people who live in them.

Of course, this isn't an "either, or" kind of problem. There are other possibilities. One approach backed by Sacramento advocates calls for a change in building code restrictions to allow squatters in vacant buildings, which would essentially move these "tent cities" indoors. (Kind of like what's happening in Miami, but on a much larger scale.) Other advocates are stressing the need to go beyond damage control and develop lasting solutions for the social and economic situations that caused this influx of homelessness in Sacramento in the first place.

So where is the happy medium? 

Perhaps it's here, in the seemingly noncommittal plan put forth by Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson last week: 

The mayor wants to end the squalor at the American River by moving the tent campers to an expanded Cal Expo winter shelter and "shared housing" apartments elsewhere. The shelter would be open until June, and rules would be relaxed to accommodate couples and campers who have pets.

In the meantime, Johnson has assembled a task force to examine sanctioned encampments in other cities to assess the pros and cons.

What would you do if you were in the mayor's shoes?