Do We Already Run an Ad-Hoc Tent City for the Homeless on County Property?

I've long advocated that the county locate homeless in secure safe tent city environments away from established neighborhoods.  My idea always meets resistance, unfortunately.  But are we implementing this idea already?

Homelessness is an issue that is pervasive around the country.

Solutions that last and are also effective are elusive.

What is the scope of the issue locally?  Well, your guess is as good as mine.  We have heard numbers from 750 total to up into the thousands.  Truth is--nobody knows for sure how many at any given time we have here.

Folks familiar with the issue tell me that the heuristic they use is "1/3."  1/3 of the homeless are there by choice, 1/3 are afflicted with undiagnosed/untreated mental illness and/or drug addiction and are content where they are, and 1/3 are truly down on their luck, out of work and suffering medical, substance abuse, or other ailements.

We all want to help those that want help.

In Escambia County, we have earmarked $4 Million for a number of initiatives to help assist with the problem, provide resources and assistance for homeless in our community, and to pay for counseling, substance abuse support and housing.

We have a number of citizens who want us to do more.  They come to meetings, they email, and they call.

They don't want to see these folks, they don't want them in their community.  In many respects, I agree with them, and I sympathize with their plight.  I mean, who wants to have their possessions stolen from their front yard/porch?  Who wants to witness grown men urinating publicly in view of children, who wants to find a shopping cart full of bags containing human feces and other disgusting rubbish dumped on their front yard? Who wants to risk having their whole neighborhood/subdivision burn down because of a carless campfire accident by a homeless campsite in the adjacent, wooded lot? And who wants to deal with aggressive panhandlers--many of whom are homeless? (all real, local examples, by the way)

Answer--nobody.

The Atlantic did a piece the other day that illuminated many aspects of this issue.  Interesting read.

Back to Escambia---I always advocated that the county establish a tent city AWAY from citizens out in the rural woods where homeless could camp and receive support (food, water, job training, medical assistance, mental health care, security, etc.) in a controlled, supportive, and safe environment without infringing on the rights of citizens and their neighborhoods in the more densely populated areas of the county.  I also advocated that we run a bus between this campsite and the county's transit hub a couple of times daily and provide the homeless residents a bus pass so they could travel about.  This sort of model is done already--- currently, privately on a small scale with the small homeless camp site called "Satoshi Forest."  And that concept works, so I wanted to scale it up.  Interestingly--we had a group of students also come to the conclusion that a camp site away from the city would work.  (Minute 13:00 of this video)

Unfortunately--this concept got no traction.  So we are spending the money we were awarded via a grant on different approaches.  We will see what happens with that.

Meanwhile---now comes word from a source that has intimate, firsthand knowledge about county property off of Beggs Lane and the number of campsites there currently.  When I spoke to this individual yesterday--I was floored by what he said.  "Jeff, there are currently between 100 and 200 campsites on that property already."

That is a massive number.  So that begs the question--are we already, tacitly yet deliberately, operating a tent city for the homeless on County Property?

If we are, and if we are going to perpetuate this location and model--then lets by all means add in the wrap around services that are also needed at a site with this many humans living within it:

Security, dumpsters, portable toilets, washing stations, and portable showers.  Let's also do some outreach, job training, food distribution, counseling, and health care assessments.

If we are going to do it, let's do it right and not apply half-measures and "hope" for the best.