Los Angeles Times reported transient encampments and car camping grew 85% countywide in the last two years. This week the Los Angeles City Council voted to make it easier for authorities to clean up homeless camps, but Seattle has found another solution by embracing tent communities.
With the lack of affordable housing continuing to be a crisis along with the growing amount of people who cannot find employment with a livable wage, tent encampments are increasing across America. There is no community, rural or urban, that is immune from homelessness and tent encampments. Directly and indirectly, tent cities effect you!
My first experience was when I visited Seattle's Nickelsville back in 2009, and being an old hippie at heart, I fell in love the self-governed tent community model. I have visited Nickelsville a few times over the years. Dignity Village in Portland is another wonderful community. In the feature film @home, the film makers follow me into Ann Arbor's "Camp Take Notice", but sadly the community no longer exists.
This video is of my visit to Tent City 3 in Seattle last year. Seattle is the one city that I am aware of that embraces tent communities and incorporates the model into their homeless services. Although tent encampments are not the best solution, when housing and shelter beds are not available, adding tent cities to the continuum is a smart move.
Mostly we only hear bad news about tent encampments. Check out this post from Seattle Pacific University hosting Tent City 3.