What I Learned Reporting in Cities That Take Belongings From Homeless People
What I Learned Reporting in Cities That Take Belongings From Homeless People
Some cities take people’s belongings — ignoring their own policies and court orders — and then fail to store them. Our reporting shows there are more effective and compassionate ways to deal with homeless encampments.
Over the past year, my colleagues Ruth Talbot, Asia Fields, Maya Miller and I have investigated how cities have sometimes ignored their own policies and court orders, which has resulted in them taking homeless people’s belongings during encampment clearings. We also found that some cities have failed to store the property so it could be returned. People told us about local governments taking everything from tents and sleeping bags to journals, pictures and mementos. Even when cities are ordered to stop seizing belongings and to provide storage for the property they take, we found that people are rarely reunited with their possessions.
The losses are traumatizing, can worsen health outcomes, and can make it harder for people like Stratton to find stability and get back inside.
Our reporting is particularly relevant because cities have recently passed new camping bans or started enforcing ones already on the books following a Supreme Court decision in June that allows local officials to punish people for sleeping outside, even if shelter isn’t available.
Imagine seeing someone with nothing but a tent and the shirt on their back and taking away their tent. Fucking monstrous.
"I'll have the shirt, too. Fork it over."
I live in a Canadian city where yearly temperatures range from +40C to -40C (104F to -40F). The city's 'cure' for unhoused people taking over bus shelters is to remove (or fail to replace) the glass panels in the shelters so they fill with snow and become unusable for everyone.
I fucking hate this timeline.
Sounds like Calgary to me. They locked all the train shelters one year so that the homeless couldn't use them... or anyone else... in -40C...
Yeah, Seattle took away most of the shelters, too. It's nowhere near as cold here, but it is often raining and rarely warm.
Hastings?
Prairies.
the state was required to house property but not the people ?
And they failed at both.
This just makes me think of the people laughing at homeless people saying "the cops stole my stuff" and brushing it off as impossible.
They forgot step 1
- Build basic housing towers
Before step 2
- Enforce the "fuck off. Not your dedicated space" rule
And the order seems to be important.
her belongings repeatedly confiscated by crews the city hires to clear encampments. These encounters, commonly known as “sweeps,” are the “biggest letdown in the world,” she said, noting that she lost the ashes of her late husband to a sweep.
Imagine if these people started to act against those. That would very quickly stop this bullshit.
No, it would result in a violent crackdown by police.
Homeless people are demonized enough as it is. If they became violent, it would just be an excuse for police and governments to take free reign in brutalizing them.