Exploring Homelessness Among People Living in Encampments and Associated Cost: City Approaches to Encampments and What They Cost

As of 2019, homeless encampments were appearing in numbers not seen in almost a century. The growth of encampments mirrored the increase in unsheltered homelessness overall and seemed to reflect a complex set of societal factors, including a lack of affordable housing and the persistence of deep poverty and chronic homelessness. Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, nationwide, communities were struggling to respond to public pressure to relocate people living in encampments and prevent the formation of new encampments with only a weak knowledge base on which to structure that response.

This study lays out a novel framework for approaches to encampments in cities around the country: clearance with support, clearance with little or no support, tacit acceptance, and formal sanctioning. Local officials in the four cities that were the main focus of this study – Chicago, Houston, Tacoma, and San Jose – generally converged on a common strategy for responding to their most visible encampments “clearance and closure with support.” In this approach, clearance (removing structures and personal belongings from the encampment) and closure (preventing people from returning to the encampment) have followed resource-intensive outreach to help connect encampment residents with needed services to try to ensure that every resident has somewhere to go at the point of encampment closure….

Read the HUD report here.