Advocates Express Concerns about Camp: As City Sites Struggle for Acceptance, is Louisville's $3M Effort a Mistake?

Author: Duvall, Tessa; Costello, Darcy

Publication info: Courier-Journal; Louisville, Ky. [Louisville, Ky]. 29 Aug 2021: A.1.

"We're trying it out to see what works. We know that our homeless need a menu of options." Tameka Laird Louisville Metro Government's director of resilience and community services After the city of Louisville announced its recent plans to launch a "safe outdoor space" for people who are homeless last Friday, a local advocate visited the site to express his concerns.

"As I stand here at 212 E. College St. (site of the proposed camp), I'm not really sure how to feel," Jeff Gill, the founder of the street outreach group Hip Hop Cares, said live on his Facebook page. "I don't know if I should be hopeful. I don't know if this is the beginning of something positive." He worried: Will Louisville use this option to tear down other camps? Our city leaders committed to making a sanctioned camp work? Or will it fall prey to the same struggles of past shelter efforts?

He's not the only one with those concerns. Advocates and experts reached by The Courier shared many of the same concerns about sanctioned encampments. And national advocacy organizations argue the time, effort, and money needed to operate them often is better spent on efforts proven to reduce homelessness — such as paying for housing and support services for people living on the streets. And it frustrates housing advocates who say the funding would be better spent constructing new units or covering apartment rent.

Why, then, is Louisville moving ahead with the $3 million encampments that will eventually offer tent sites, portable toilets, and showers to as many as 60 people? Tameka Laird, the Louisville Metro Government's director of resilience and community services, says it's a realistic response to an immediate crisis: a stopgap measure that will buy time for the city to build up its housing stock, while meeting people where they are now.

City officials have stressed the pilot is one piece of a larger housing plan — details of which are scarce, but which is said to include new transitional and supportive housing options — as part of a "menu" of options. The city had 257 people who were unsheltered and experiencing homelessness during this year's point-in-time count in January.

"This is an option for them to be able to be in an environment where they can feel safe, and then also receive a connection to supportive services," Laird told The Courier-Journal. "We need that; the consistency to be able to make these touchpoints with these individuals are going to be crucial." Still, the mixed track record of other cities that have attempted similar outdoor camping sites suggests Louisville faces a challenging path.

Eric Tars, legal director for the National Homelessness Law Center, said communities across the country have spent the last 40 years neglecting to act on the affordable housing crisis. Now, when combined with a steady rise in unsheltered homelessness in recent years, cities are reacting on an emergency basis — opting for "the quickest, easiest solutions that they can try," Tars said. "First, the city has failed to create adequate amounts of affordable housing for its residents," he said. "Then, it's failed to even provide enough emergency shelter for them. And so now it's saying, 'Well, you know, a step up from doing nothing is at least giving people a legal place where they can sleep.'" 'A temporary fix ... not without cost' Safe spaces or sanctioned encampments are not a solution, local and national advocates for the unhoused stress. Many are ambivalent at best on the prospect, warning the camps alone do little to significantly relieve the larger problem.

The U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness urges "caution" for cities considering this undertaking, saying "these environments may make it look and feel like the community is taking action to end homelessness on the surface — but, by themselves, they have little impact on reducing homelessness." Nan Roman, president and CEO of the National Alliance to End Homelessness, too, called the programs "a temporary fix," adding "they're not without cost." In Louisville, the city is paying $1.6 million for the property on 212 E. College St. It also expects to fund operations with up to $1 million and an additional $400,000 for amenities, and has solicited interested managers for the pilot, expected to serve 40 to 60 residents.

Erin Rutherford, who has worked in housing and homeless services for about 13 years, including in Louisville‐area homeless services, called the safe camp a distraction, a way to "appease" neighbors concerned about camps near where they live. Complaints about encampments likely grew during the pandemic when the city wasn't conducting sweeps and while businesses were closed downtown, she said. But the only solution to homelessness is housing, she said — not addressing the symptoms of the problem. "This is a way for the city to say that they're doing something to address the encampment issue, but addressing the encampment issue is putting them into housing. It's not creating another safe space," said Rutherford, who works as an emergency solutions grant consultant for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, more commonly called HUD. 

"If we really feel like housing is a human right, this should go toward housing people, not moving them to another camp, to then maybe get housing." Tars, of the National Homelessness Law Center, criticized Louisville for failing to take advantage of Federal Emergency Management Agency money that would have fully paid for placing unsheltered people in non‐congregate housing, such as hotels or motels, during the pandemic. The center has sent city leaders information about the program as recently as May. "They haven't taken the government up on that, and instead what they're doing is they're offering them a legal place to camp," Tars said. "That just says so much to me in terms of how people experiencing homelessness are viewed and what people feel they should be entitled to."

Denver camps gain reluctant support Louisville is far from the first city to allow camping in a designated space. Concentrated initially on the West Coast, the practice has steadily gained traction across the country as street homelessness rises rapidly. Denver, which Louisville Metro officials have cited as inspiration, created two temporary outdoor spaces this winter, complete with uniform tents, cots, and heating. Community opposition and zoning were initial hurdles, but neighbors were largely appeased by the "calm, clean, orderly spaces" so far, said Denver Councilwoman Robin Kniech, an early proponent of the spaces. "As an alternative to unregulated street camping," Kniech said, "it's a success." Camp residents have gotten on waiting lists for housing, she said, and a third‐party evaluation found inhabitants' stress and anxiety decreased. The Mile High City opted for temporary, rotating sites, and pinned the program to the pandemic. It's currently scheduled to wind down in 2023.

Kniech praised Louisville for its permanent location, suggesting it would cut down on the struggles of site selection still plaguing Denver. Denver has also pushed a larger housing plan: preserving income‐restricted rentals, cutting down eviction filings, and reducing unsheltered homelessness by 50%. Gainesville's Dignity Village Tars said no city has found a "perfect model for these imperfect improvisations," but noted some places have done better than others, like Gainesville, the North Central Florida college town. There, the city worked with the nonprofit Grace Marketplace, which shrank the population of a sanctioned encampment by 95% in less than two years. Grace Marketplace Executive Director Jon DeCarmine traced the effort's origins to 2014 when the city shut down a large downtown encampment and urged its residents to set up on state‐owned land next to Grace's campus with the city's tacit approval.

The camp, Dignity Village, allowed residents to access the amenities and services at Grace, but DeCarmine said they were missing the piece that worked to get people into homes. "We realized that our community had inadvertently set up, basically, just a place that was manufacturing chronic homelessness," he said. After six months of planning with input from the camp's residents, Dignity Village was gradually shut down and migrated to Grace's campus in March 2020; about 50 people were put into permanent housing during that transition period. Grace built 90 tent platforms on its property, open only to residents of the shuttered Dignity Village. When someone was placed into housing, that platform was removed. The camp started with 222 people. Since then, 140 have been placed into permanent housing, 71 have left town and stopped receiving services in the region and 11 are waiting for housing. "The work that we did was set up to solve a very specific problem," DeCarmine said. "The alternative that we're doing now is investing in street outreach, so that we can find people in smaller camps and get them into housing directly from there without requiring a shelter stay. 

Not every community has had the same success as Gainesville. There have been various efforts to set up a legalized campsite in San Jose in California's Silicon Valley, going back to at least 2015, according to local news reports. There was a stretch in 2018 and 2019 where people were allowed to stay at a site called Hope Village, but it was shuttered at the end of the six‐month lease and its residents were given 30‐day hotel vouchers. An attempt to relocate the village was quashed after neighbors resisted. A sanctioned encampment again died before the San Jose City Council earlier this year, according to the San Jose Spotlight.

Sandy Perry, president of the Affordable Housing Network of Santa Clara County, told The Courier-Journal he pushed for the encampment earlier this year. The city refused, he said, saying it'd have to also, provide a fence and security alongside other services. "It's very institutional in a way that's kind of unattractive," Perry said. "What's more attractive and more effective in essence — but certainly not perfect because living outside is not perfect in any conditions — is just simply stop sweeping people. "Let people live in the camp that's where they already are ... and provide some basic services like toilets and handwashing stations." Do people living outside want this? 

A University of Louisville survey conducted this summer of 111 people living in local encampments within and just outside the Watterson Expressway found 90% often sleep outdoors. More than 70% said they feel safer outdoors than in a shelter. In an additional question posed to 53 of those surveyed, 73% said they would stay in an outdoor tented shelter if one were available. Lora Haynes, a University of Louisville associate professor who is part of a team doing research into programs targeting unsheltered homelessness, cautioned the main goal of the team's survey was not to measure enthusiasm for a safe space location. And she pointed out the survey, which is ongoing, making initial connections with individuals living in encampments. Others, which may include more youth, minorities, and LGBTQ individuals, may not be staying there — opting instead to stay in cars or on couches, or at friends' houses. "There's still a lot to understand about what would get someone to a safe environment, as compared to where they might be right now, in an unsheltered, out‐in‐the‐world context," Haynes said. The outdoor space, Haynes said, could be promising for making connections, offering services, and moving people to housing. But she worries it could be an expensive endeavor and raise safety and security issues for inhabitants. And, importantly, she wonders if significant investments in affordable housing will follow.

Louisville's Office of Resilience and Community Services also conducted a separate survey where more than 80% of 44 respondents said they would use a safe outdoor space if it was available. What advocates will be watching for Technical details of how Louisville's outdoor space will operate remain slim. Asked whether conditions such as sobriety or curfews will be required, Laird said Louisville would work on policies and procedures with the camp's operators. The city has said it expects the site to include "wraparound services," such as connection to permanent housing or healthcare. And officials say individuals will be able to set up tents, with access to portable toilets and showers. A 12‐page Notice of Funding Available put out by Louisville Metro Government includes additional questions the city expects operators to answer: What safety and security policies will be used? Will background checks be performed on staff? Will participants be screened, such as with metal detectors or sobriety checks? How will the space try to prevent the spread of COVID‐19? How will the site contribute to equity goals? Laird suggested the pilot could be flexible. "We're trying it out to see what works," Laird said. "We know that our homeless need a menu of options."

One thing advocates will be watching for: Will the newly sanctioned encampment give the city leverage to intensify its sweeping of unsanctioned camps? "If someone refuses to go, then are they still going to allow them to stay at the place that they're at currently?" Rutherford said. "Or are they going to use it as a way to further criminalize the homeless?" Roman, of the National Alliance to End Homelessness, urged Louisville to consider not just a strategy for setting up the encampment, but a plan for how to empty it by putting people in housing. "They don't really seem to go away, these encampments," she said. Reach Tessa Duvall at tduvall@courier‐journal.com and 502‐582‐4059. Twitter: @TessaDuvall. Darcy Costello: 502‐582‐4834; dcostello@courier‐journal.com; Twitter: @dctello. "We're trying it out to see what works. We know that our homeless need a menu of options." 

Tameka Laird Louisville Metro Government's director of resilience and community services Best practices for sanctioned camps According to experts interviewed by The Courier-Journal, here are policies and procedures the Louisville Metro Government and its nonprofit operator should consider when running the sanctioned encampment: Listen to residents. The most effective camps are run with a degree of self‐governance from the people who live there. Create a welcoming environment. An encampment that fulfills people's needs will be used; an empty camp would say more about the space offered than the people who chose not to use it. Eliminate barriers to entry.

Allow residents the three Ps: their pets, partners, and possessions. Go beyond basic services. Things like trash pickup, sanitation, laundry, food, security, and other essentials are needed at sanctioned encampments, but residents should also be connected to other resources they may need, including physical and mental health care and substance abuse treatment. Have an exit plan. Camps can be difficult to close once they've opened. Make sure there is a plan in place for getting people connected with services and into permanent housing as quickly as possible. What are the other parts of Louisville's housing plan? 

Officials in Mayor Greg Fischer's administration have said they plan to invest in solutions for the city housing crisis in a four‐prong approach, likely using funds from the federal American Rescue Plan. Details are scarce, however, and officials have said there's no timeline for future announcements. They've said the three parts of the plan, in addition to the safe outdoor space, ar Transitional housing, potentially in a hotel or motel; More permanent supportive housing options; and Additional funding for affordable housing.