Indoor Homeless Sheltering Pricey? San Francisco Finds Outdoor Shelters No Bargain

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staff
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a refuse track waits curtsied as workers dismantle a homeless tent encampment
Tent Encampment Removal photo by bryce_nesbitt is licensed under CC BY 2.0
Standard treatment for tent city removal: treat it all as trash, not personal possessions. We're betting San Fransisco city-owned tents won't get this treatment.

What’s in a name? Unofficial collection of tents together with a ragtag of people pick up tags such as  “A Crime-Ridden Blight,” or a “Danger to the Community.” Here’s an example from Western Australia, where that State is totally onboard and prepared to act with prejudice on an encampment. The City of Fremantle, at odds, has offered more compassion towards a homeless population with few alternatives other than crashing in alleys and doorways.1

Provide official city funding, however, and, in a marvel of public relations spin-doctory, a collection of tents becomes a “Safe Sleeping Village.”

However, if reports from San Francisco City Council are to be believed, these officialdom-created homeless tent cities come at a substantial price. Mind you, San Francisco may be deemed credit-worthy for creating such shelters (or merely faced with too many homeless people to sweep them all inside in the face of a pandemic).

Credit-worthy? Its actions in funding tent collections as shelters run counter to the mainstream treatment of city homeless populations around the world.2 Sweeping the homeless indoors to shelter in crowded conditions with poor air circulation has proven to be a recipe for coronavirus outbreak. That’s left many homeless themselves doubtful that they are being “saved” from COVID-19 by sheltering indoors.3

What has come as something of a shock to San Francisco and its experiment with tent city shelters: there appears to be no cheap solution to the homelessness problem, even attempting to only provide a modicum of civilization under a hankie of ripstop nylon. Read more at SFist: Insanely, It Is Costing San Francisco $5,000/Month For Each Homeless Tent

Footnotes

  1. Try: WA State Exasperated By City Council Compassion For Homeless Encampment
  2. Perhaps San Francisco tuned in to the advice from the UN Special Rapporteur on Housing, who issued COVID-specific guidance about informal encampments and to protect people living in homelessness.
  3. Read more at the Canadian Civil Liberties Association:  Fighting For Safe Shelter – Toronto Must Defend People Experiencing Homelessness