by Dan Slattery
While short-term solutions such as homeless shelters may offer temporary reprieve from immediate issues, they provide too little control for the 3.5 million Americans who experience homelessness each year. Because shelters function on a first-come first-serve basis, the structure often forces those in need to sacrifice possible productive hours to wait in line to make sure they have a place to sleep each night. Naturally, feelings of frustration and lack of control may prompt them to look for more sources of shelter. One such refuge, a tent city allows homeless people to form a sense of community around a temporary city without government approval.
On May 12 of 2012, bulldozers rolled into Hopeville, a tent city on the Mississippi riverfront (Bogan). The St. Louis City Government has helped relocate willing members of the tent city to motels or apartments. However, due to the prevalence of mental illness among the homeless, many of those affected may not even be accepted into these housing arrangements.
According to some of the residents, they had been in other tent cities before arriving at Hopeville. The recurrence of tent city members suggests that the government may not be providing an adequate safety net or proper services for their long-term condition. While the city, under public scrutiny, attempts to serve these individuals, it lacks the resources to help those in extreme cases. Understandably, families would rather remain together than be separated by gender in shelters, and those struggling with drug addictions fail to get help before succumbing to their addiction and getting kicked from the shelter. In response, people try to form communities instead of facing the dangers of these issues alone, but their work is often destroyed. Most tent cities last a couple months before being torn down because they do not meet city regulations and then quickly get replaced by new ones, leading to constant instability and lack of trust between the homeless and city governments (Hunter).
Many tent cities subsist on donated food and materials, and the encampments tend to be started by individuals who are able to donate the initial supplies rather than those who are homeless. Often religious leaders promote the encampment, which has allowed some tent cities to stay open after successfully arguing that they deserve the same legal protections as the religion institutions supporting them (Loftus). In other cases homeless people will set up tents at night and dismantle them before dawn so they are not caught. Eventually these can develop into full-fledged democratic communities which have a greater potential to not be disrupted by local governments as long as they can avoid internal conflict (Hunter).
The difference between leaving all of their belongings in an encampment and carrying them at all times allows people more mobility and self-sufficiency. Without needing to queue up for a shelter, homeless people can spend more time searching for jobs. Done successfully, a tent city can help homeless people exit the cycle of poverty. Whether it’s a tent or a fixture of sheet metal, a home ultimately creates a sense of normalcy that is lacking in a shelter. These community-oriented microcosms allow member to feel in control of an essential aspect in their own lives instead of forced to succumb to the whims of public services.
Sources:
Bogan, Jesse. "'Hopeville' Homeless Camp in St. Louis Comes down : News." Stltoday.com. St. Louis Post_Dispatch, 11 May 2012. Web. 02 Oct. 2015.
Hunter, Julie, Paul Linden-Retek, Sirine Shebaya, and Samuel Halper. Welcome Home: The Rise of Tent Cities in the United States. Rep. Ed. Hope Metcalf, Eric Tars, and Heather Maria Johnson. Yale Law, Mar. 2014. Web. 2 Oct. 2015.
Loftus-Farren, Zoe. "Tent Cities: An Interim Solution to Homelessness and Affordable Housing Shortages in the United States." California Law Review, Aug. 2011. Web. 2 Oct. 2015.
According to some of the residents, they had been in other tent cities before arriving at Hopeville. The recurrence of tent city members suggests that the government may not be providing an adequate safety net or proper services for their long-term condition. While the city, under public scrutiny, attempts to serve these individuals, it lacks the resources to help those in extreme cases. Understandably, families would rather remain together than be separated by gender in shelters, and those struggling with drug addictions fail to get help before succumbing to their addiction and getting kicked from the shelter. In response, people try to form communities instead of facing the dangers of these issues alone, but their work is often destroyed. Most tent cities last a couple months before being torn down because they do not meet city regulations and then quickly get replaced by new ones, leading to constant instability and lack of trust between the homeless and city governments (Hunter).
Many tent cities subsist on donated food and materials, and the encampments tend to be started by individuals who are able to donate the initial supplies rather than those who are homeless. Often religious leaders promote the encampment, which has allowed some tent cities to stay open after successfully arguing that they deserve the same legal protections as the religion institutions supporting them (Loftus). In other cases homeless people will set up tents at night and dismantle them before dawn so they are not caught. Eventually these can develop into full-fledged democratic communities which have a greater potential to not be disrupted by local governments as long as they can avoid internal conflict (Hunter).
The difference between leaving all of their belongings in an encampment and carrying them at all times allows people more mobility and self-sufficiency. Without needing to queue up for a shelter, homeless people can spend more time searching for jobs. Done successfully, a tent city can help homeless people exit the cycle of poverty. Whether it’s a tent or a fixture of sheet metal, a home ultimately creates a sense of normalcy that is lacking in a shelter. These community-oriented microcosms allow member to feel in control of an essential aspect in their own lives instead of forced to succumb to the whims of public services.
Sources:
Bogan, Jesse. "'Hopeville' Homeless Camp in St. Louis Comes down : News." Stltoday.com. St. Louis Post_Dispatch, 11 May 2012. Web. 02 Oct. 2015.
Hunter, Julie, Paul Linden-Retek, Sirine Shebaya, and Samuel Halper. Welcome Home: The Rise of Tent Cities in the United States. Rep. Ed. Hope Metcalf, Eric Tars, and Heather Maria Johnson. Yale Law, Mar. 2014. Web. 2 Oct. 2015.
Loftus-Farren, Zoe. "Tent Cities: An Interim Solution to Homelessness and Affordable Housing Shortages in the United States." California Law Review, Aug. 2011. Web. 2 Oct. 2015.