Disband homeless camps? Some cities rethink them instead.

When Salt Lake City began enforcing an urban camping ban several years ago, hundreds of Utahns picked up their belongings and headed toward the Jordan River.

For centuries, the river has been a trading post, a border, and a nexus of nomadic activity. But most of all, it has been “a place of refuge,” says Søren Simonsen, executive director of the Jordan River Commission.

Today, growing numbers of encampments filled with Americans without permanent homes dot the banks of the river. And Mr. Simonsen is on the front line of what to do about it.

A decade ago, Utah claimed it had largely “solved” homelessness, reducing it by 91%. Now it is considering an idea, supported by Mr. Simonsen, that is gaining traction across the United States: outlawing unsanctioned camping and instead creating government-sanctioned tent encampments as steppingstones for those without homes to find more permanent housing.

For much of the recent past, one assumption in addressing homelessness has been that everyone wants a solid roof. The debate over encampments is shifting those assumptions. Increasingly, cities and states are exploring whether there can be a sense of dignity and agency in “safe outside spaces” as an end in themselves. As some carry out sweeps to clear out encampments, others are experimenting with the idea of making them more humane, hygienic, and livable as one potential part of the solution to the housing crisis.

“I get that civilization has progressed, and we’ve become people that live in cities, but why does civilization have to be one way or one thing?” says Mr. Simonsen. “Can’t we make space for people that aren’t ready, aren’t capable, aren’t interested in living such a fixed-address kind of lifestyle?”

“We can do better than that”

The situation is Utah is common across the country. Tent encampments have “definitely become more of a visible issue since the pandemic,” exacerbated by a national housing shortage, says Courtney Anderson, an expert on social welfare law at Georgia State University College of Law in Atlanta. “It’s a problem that people can see, so they need a solution where they can’t see it.”

Under pressure from voters, officials are taking action.

Authorities in Rhode Island cleared an encampment from the steps of the state capitol in December. Washington, D.C., conducts regular camp removals. New York City has conducted hundreds of “sweeps” under Mayor Eric Adams. Residents have largely hailed the efforts, but the majority of those affected haven’t moved into more permanent housing.

The concern is that simply clearing camps can strip people of their agency and dignity.

“The raiding of camps is really tragic,” says Professor Anderson. “The more you dehumanize people, the easier it is to do that kind of thing.”

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled it is unconstitutional to ban sleeping in public if there are no other sleeping options available, and some municipal courts have made similar rulings. But this year, Tennessee made camping away from sanctioned areas a felony. Other states are following suit.

The Georgia Senate is considering a bill that would criminalize camping and force municipalities to comply. But the bill would also allow the state to designate areas for sanctioned camps.

In Savannah, Georgia, Shirley Walkowicz says the move to criminalize what she is doing – living in her car – “just shows that people don’t [care] about me and people like me.”

But for Rachel Potter, a Savannah college student who also has no home, an option to move into semi-permanent housing – even tents – would be appealing. “A lot of these people out here choose to live in tents. They like it. It’s a lifestyle.”

The Georgia bill is significantly based on the thinking of Judge Glock, a senior fellow at the nonpartisan Cicero Institute. Dr. Glock saw the early potential of “housing first” – an Obama-era policy that ended requirements such as drug testing for housing recipients. But he now says the policy has largely failed. An average of five homeless people die on the streets of Los Angeles every day, he says – more than twice as many as a decade ago.

“This is a crisis situation,” he says. “It’s about what we can do this month, this year. We can’t just sit on our hands until the housing [shortage] is solved.”

He points to cities such as Austin, Texas, and Portland, Oregon, which are banning makeshift encampments but creating safe spaces for people without homes.

“The argument is, if cities are going to allow it, make sure they provide the things you need: sanitation, social services, security,” says Dr. Glock. “If the cities don’t make a conscious decision about where to put them, they are outsourcing that decision to wherever a camp happens to spring up and wherever people are yelling the loudest about it.”

Birmingham, Alabama, has just voted to erect a tiny house village to accomplish many of these goals. For City Council member Hunter Williams, the logic is clear.  

“People have thoughts whether the city should or shouldn’t [erect camps] – whether it’s outside the realm of municipal government,” he says. “But the reality is, our fire and rescue and our police and our city jail are already involved, at a much greater cost than this program.”

“We don’t have to have tent cities under every overpass in America, and we’ve all seen some of that,” he adds. “We can do better than that.”

Athens’ answer

Residents in Athens, Georgia, faced that same decision – what to do with the residents of “Cooterville,” a large camp under a railroad trestle.

Trash, sanitation, and drug use all became issues. But as authorities began to knock down the encampments, the Athens-Clarke County Commission looked at the flip side: If not Cooterville, then where? Two shelters were full. And there was a recognition that not everyone living under the trestle could cope with living in a shelter.

Mayor Kelly Girtz has spent most of his life in Athens, much of it as an educator, and he knew students who didn’t have a permanent residence. In recent years, he had seen students in line at one of the city’s homeless shelters.

The pandemic, to him, humanized their problems. “I saw stories about alcohol abuse going up during the pandemic. Those same issues were hitting people with perfectly good roofs over their heads.”

After a polarized debate, the council deadlocked 4-4 on whether to give the residents of Cooterville a tent city to move into. Mayor Girtz broke the tie by voting yes.

Today, 55 tents are lined up neatly on wooden platforms. Trash is nowhere to be found. “It looks a little like the TV show ‘MASH,’” says Mayor Girtz. The $5 million investment includes adding crisis beds at a local mental health clinic.

“The point was to move people from unstructured camping to a more structured, clean, stable, and healthy environment,” says Mayor Girtz.

Utah’s Mr. Simonsen, for one, senses a shift in focus toward a greater responsibility for those who make the banks of the Jordan River their home.

“We still have a large vision for” an individualistic country, where dignity is earned by overcoming obstacles – natural, man-made, and personal, he says. “Yet people being rugged and individual are often considered outcasts. It’s a complex and very fraught question that’s now in the forefront.”