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Forcefully Removing Homeless Encampments Removes People From the Help They Need and Could Put Them in Danger
You’re not eliminating the “problem,” you’re just moving people around.
Last week, the Mayor of Philadelphia ordered police to clear a homeless encampment in the Kensignton Neighborhood. There are multiple versions of how things went. According to the Philadelphia Inquirer:
“City officials said in a news release Wednesday evening that its outreach workers had connected 55 people to housing services, including low-barrier shelter beds or recovery-focused shelter beds, in the 30-day period leading up to the encampment resolution. Four people had been connected to drug and alcohol treatment, the city said.
Of the 59 total people connected to housing or recovery services, 19 received such assistance on the day of the encampment clearing, Joe Grace, Parker’s spokesperson, said in a statement. No one was arrested, the city said.”
Also in the Inquirer:
“Eva Fitch, a harm reduction advocate who came to the scene to offer help to people living there, said there were about 30 unhoused people in the area at about 7 a.m. She said police told people that outreach workers were on their way, but many on the street left on their own as sanitation workers sprayed down the sidewalks.
Fitch said she was encircled by officers as she helped lift a woman who appeared to be suffering from a serious infection into a wheelchair.
“As we were trying to move her, the cops surrounded us in a circle, about 20 cops to seven of us,” she said. “Street cleaners were spraying water next to her as she was trying to get into the chair.””
And:
“And Aine Fox, a legal observer with the activist group Up Against the Law Legal Collective, said officers pushed her off Kensington Avenue using bicycles and shoved her in the back. Her account is corroborated by video footage.
“There were people shouting, ‘they’re here to help us move our stuff. Let them help us,’” Fox said. “We didn’t get an opportunity to help them.””
