It’s amazing how much society knows about tent encampments occupied by the unhoused, (or homeless, if you prefer). It seems we apparently know that:
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- most are drug addicts of one class or another, who leave dangerous drug paraphernalia scattered in public spaces.
- most are dangerous to children, requiring careful guardianship when shepherding children in the vicinity of no-go zones such as tent encampments.
- most have mental disorders and prone to making dangerous decisions, which threaten ‘normal’ folks.
- they are petty thieves, lurking in commercial shops and in residential districts, searching for anything worth stealing.
- they have poor hygiene habits, peeing and pooping wherever they feel like it.
- they party-hearty, keeping responsible citizens awake till all hours.
- they panhandle, offering to clean windshields at traffic stops, often performing badly and leaving streaks on the glass.
We could go on. There’s much more, describing events that are somewhere on a scale between damage-causing accidental bumbling all the way to rage-filled, near-homicidal encounters, terrorizing upstanding citizens of beleaguered communities.
Seemingly, everyone is aware of the dangerous spread of these diverse, society-threatening ‘encampment’ communities. Not only that, everyone shares a belief that these encampments are intrinsically bad.
A recent example has been playing out in Canada’s province of Ontario, where 15 mayors and the province’s Premier have been attempting to actually change Canada’s constitution to better protect innocent citizenry by denying homeless people their constitutional rights.
Americans, who have been committed to constitutional democracy since the 18th century, should well appreciate the importance of Ontario’s attempts to invoke a constitutional ‘notwithstanding’ clause to amend Canada’s constitution.
But are these actions in any way actually deserved?
Is there another way of absorbing the reality of citizens who can’t afford homes and are forced to adopt homeless community support measures in order to survive?
Are there studies that evaluate the supposed social benefits, or in contrast the dangers, of homeless tent communities? Have they evolved, not as a spit in the eye to home owners and renters in conventional housing, but as an affordable means of providing mutual support and survival?
Yes, here’s one, based upon years of police records from Brantford Ontario. A history of bad behaviour worthy of persecution by community authorities such as a provincial Premier and a gang of mayors? Nope. Read more from the Journal of Criminal Justice: To tent and protect: Homeless encampments as “protective facilities”
