Urban Exile: Lifestyles of the Down and Out—Tent Cities in America
by Erika K.
“To be shelterless and alone in the open country, hearing the wind moan and watching for day through the whole long weary night; to listen to the falling rain, and crouch for warmth beneath the lee of some old barn or rick, or in the hollow of a tree; are dismal things—but not so dismal as the wandering up and down where shelter is, and beds and sleepers are by the thousands; a houseless rejected creature.”—Charles Dickens, Barnaby Rudge
Ann Arbor has its very own tent city, Camp Take Notice, nestled in the woods, far away from view, where residents and politicos don’t have to take notice. It was moved to its current location in honor of President Obama’s last visit to Ann Arbor. Cornel West and Tavis Smiley visited Camp Take Notice as part of their Poverty Tour.
According to the National Alliance to End Homelessness, about 671,859 people are homeless on any given night in the United States. There was a time when the homeless lived on the streets and in shelters. With many shelters filled to capacity, tent cities have become an alternative form of habitation. In many cities across the country, it is illegal to sleep in your car, and other communities are taking measures to criminalize tent cities as well. Out of sight, out of mind, I guess.
Lakewood, New Jersey.
Reverend Steven Brigham of the Lakewood Outreach Ministry Church started the Lakewood tent city in 2006. After fighting with the city for years for access to public lands, he found a lawyer to represent his case pro bono. The attorney, Jeff Wild, said that the homeless population is part of the public and therefore should have access to public lands. Lakewood City Council decided to settle rather than go to court, and Brigham signed an agreement not to put up any more shelters and to limit the population to 70. Brigham refuses to close the camp, stating that neither Lakewood nor Ocean County provide adequate shelter for the homeless.
Last winter the community built three wooden structures to house and keep everyone warm.
According to Robert Johnson’s article in Business Insider last September, Brigham says, “We didn’t lose anybody last year, and nobody got sick.” He says that some stay, some find part-time work and are able to move on and others come back.
Moral Low Ground published an article on August 29, 2011 entitled “U.N.: U.S. Criminalization of the Homeless Violates International Human Rights Obligations.”
The United Nations says that “the criminalization of the homeless in the United States is a clear violation of international human rights standards.”
“Under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, safe drinking water and restrooms are considered basic human rights. The U.N. found that U.S. cities are failing to meet these human rights obligations. In this day and age of soaring homeless populations, especially families, a problem exacerbated by the ongoing unemployment and foreclosure crises, more people than ever are at risk of being denied their human rights.”
Fast forward to January 2012. Lakewood officials still want to close the camp. Jeff Wild said that the county and township’s remedy is to pay $100 a night for motel stays for those living in the camp, which he calls a “Band-Aid” that does not address the issue of affordable housing in the area.
Michael DiCicco, attorney for Lakewood, said that “allowing homeless individuals to remain on this property indefinitely . . . would eviscerate centuries of Anglo Saxon property law.”
Slab City, Southern California.
Slab City, called the “The Last Free Place” by its residents, consists of multiple slabs left over from the foundation of a World War II training camp. Currently inhabited by about 2,000 people, it has been an unofficial RV park for years that has attracted artists and people who want to live off the grid, but its population includes the homeless as well.
On December 14, 2011, Ben Tracy of CBS News reported on this community in an article entitled, “ ‘Slab City’ A Desert Haven for Recession’s Victims.”
One of the residents, Vince Neill, parked his RV here along with his wife and six kids a couple months ago. He recently lost his audio-visual business and their Modesto, California home.
“I would apply to 30-40 jobs a day online,” said Neill. “And there’s just nothing.”
“Did you ever imagine ending up here?” Tracy asked.
“No, no,” he said. “I always wore a shirt and tie, and worked in an office. And had a nice car and house. But we’ve lost pretty much everything.”
Slab City boasts a church, a music venue called the Range and an internet cafe. Electricity is derived from the sun, and there is no sewer or running water. A hole in the ground is the only shower for miles around.
Neill hopes his family will not be living there too much longer and hopes to look for work in Los Angeles this spring.
I have no solutions to offer here, only information. I found it curious that Tracy referred to the homeless at Slab City as “refugees of the Great Recession.” I thought refugees were foreigners seeking asylum on other shores. According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, a refugee is “one that flees,” particularly one “who flees to a foreign country or power to escape danger or persecution.”
Is that what our homeless citizens have become? Refugees in their own country, beset by danger, persecuted in their own land, driven from their homes by economic terror. If they are forced out of their own cars or tent cities, where will they go? I cannot help but think of the coyotes and mountain lions who appear in people’s backyards in Los Angeles or bears and deer in New Jersey, led by hunger or because they have been dispossessed. What will become of them?