Jason MacCannell

October 21, 2003

"A Tale of Two Tent Cities": Portland’s Dignity Village and the Tent City Movement in Sacramento

Why does Sacramento resist agitation by homeless people to establish a "tent city" while Portland, Oregon allows such an establishment to exist? What factors–in the tactics of the homeless leadership, the geography and political cultures of the two cities, or the different homeless populations themselves–caused the success of Dignity Village in Portland and the continuing failure of SHOC (the Sacramento Homeless Organizing Committee) to establish a similar settlement?

I interviewed a total of seven individuals: a homeless tent city advocate in Sacramento; a leader of the tent city in Portland; the captain of police in charge of downtown Sacramento; the Sacramento neighborhood services supervisor who handled SHOC’s request for a camping permit; the liaison to the tent city in a Portland commissioner’s office; the coordinator of Portland’s programs for the homeless; and a "POP" (problem oriented policing) officer with the Sacramento Police Department, charged with "cleaning up" the area where the homeless are concentrated. Four of these individuals were interviewed in pairs: the two city officials from Portland, and the police captain and supervisor from Sacramento. The following topics were covered in the interviews:

I found that geography and entrenched political cultures make Portland a hospitable place, and Sacramento inhospitable, to tent city movements. In Sacramento, homeless campers are dispersed along the American River Parkway, a sprawling expanse of parklands that allows most homeless people to camp by themselves or in small, family or family-like groups. In Portland, no such greenbelt exists. The homeless people who were organized into the Dignity Village movement were already concentrated in the doorways and loading docks of a relatively small downtown, and especially under cover of the western heads of bridges crossing the Willamette River. Under one of these, the Broadway Bridge, Dignity Village got its start. The difference between speaking up and assuming leadership where a population is already concentrated, and attempting to draw together diffusely settled people into a movement, is logistically a large one. The shopping cart parades that captured public attention in Portland seem an impossibility in Sacramento; no SHOC march has gathered more than a couple of dozen people. The organizing problem faced by SHOC is much greater than the one surmounted by the Dignity Village leadership.

Perhaps more importantly, Portland is a "hip" city. The visibility of sub- or counter-cultural youth on the streets there is vast in comparison to Sacramento. Jack Tafari, the only remaining founder of Dignity Village and one of the subjects of this study, was inspired to action in part by his Rastafarian beliefs. The existence of a "conscious" homeless counterculture in Portland may have had a significant impact on Dignity Village’s ability to organize, but the current population at D.V. does not have an especially countercultural character. In fact, the people I met in the common room there seemed representative of any homeless population, urban or rural, that I have studied. The more critical impact of Portland’s "hipness" lies in the culture of a city government that is both progressive in its overall outlook, and empowered beyond the dreams of Sacramento’s political leadership. Portland retains a "commission-based" city government, in which the legislative officers of the city council also hold administrative control over city programs and services. Thus the mayor is the police commissioner as well, and another council member’s office is the executive government’s chief liaison to the city department of Housing and Community Development. This mixing of legislative and administrative authority has given progressives like Commissioner Erik Sten the power to allow a tent city, such as no individual official in Sacramento, progressive or conservative, would be likely to have. This greater power of the city government exists in Portland alongside an urban culture that celebrates its countercultural aspects, including, to some degree, the homeless. According to Marshall Runkel, my interviewee who works for Sten, washing away Portland’s "grit" and "funk" would mean driving away the "creative class" of young people who are the city’s greatest hope for a bright economic future. Sacramento seems to follow a more traditional development model of attempting to attract new businesses and families with steady incomes. It also, being the center of state government, has nearer the stable economic base required to sustain such development.

Entrenched cultural and geographic factors notwithstanding, the leadership of SHOC has made some mistakes in their approach to establishing a tent city. While Dignity Village’s tactic of simply declaring proprietary rights to an area already inhabited by the homeless would be impossible in Sacramento, SHOC’s petition for a permit to camp in a city park seems self-defeating. Parks are, after all, as a tent city would be, a liberal entitlement created to improve urban life. Children’s sports and the simple relief of open space are difficult to argue against, particularly when one’s platform is that of human rights and dignity and quality of life. Unfortunately for the SHOC cause, the area most used for homeless camping in Sacramento is already constituted as parkland. Barring purchase or seizure of private land, there is literally nowhere in Sacramento for a tent city to go. The former president of SHOC might have further damaged the organization’s claim to space by miscommunicating intentions to the police, and by falsely promising immunity from camping tickets to homeless people.

Another major and rather "arbitrary" factor in the success or failure of the two cities’ movements lies with the courts’ responses to cases designed to test the cities’ anti-camping ordinances. Judge Gallagher in Portland declared the ordinance unconstitutional, and the city allowed an appeal in higher court to "wither and die". Billy McManus’ challenge of camping tickets got four out of five of his charges overturned; the fifth is being appealed. The marginal difference in legal effect of these two decisions (according to Jack Tafari, camping tickets are still being issued in Portland) should be seen in the shadow of the difference between two city governments, one more willing and the other less willing to fight in court to maintain the camping ban.

None of my interviewees were aware of a tent city movement in Portland before Dignity Village. D.V. started on September 4, 2001, under the Broadway Bridge in Portland, where it survived for only two days before eviction by law enforcement. It has been at a total of six sites including the current one. The community seems to have gradually acquired legitimate status after a period of rousting and confrontation. Currently about sixty people are housed in D.V., out of a homeless population in Portland estimated at about 1600. According to Jack Tafari, more than a thousand people have stayed or lived at D.V. during its two years. Its current site was formerly a leaf-composting facility operated by the city parks department. D.V., now constituted as a 501(c) (3) nonprofit organization, pays a monthly rent to the city equivalent to the parks department’s calculation of the cost of not operating the leaf facility. Total self-sufficiency is the goal of D.V.

In Sacramento, a city-sanctioned tent city, innocuously called the "singlepersons’ facility" in official documents, existed in the late seventies and early eighties. According to Officer Mark Zoulas, this was a lawless place where the "rule of the jungle" prevailed. Police from neighboring jurisdictions would drop off homeless at its gates. Eventually it was shut down due to chronic violence, drug and alcohol abuse. In the early nineties, at the time of the last major recession, SHOC originally formed and began agitating for a tent city in response to enforcement of the camping ban on a growing population. According to Paula Lomazzi, treasurer of SHOC, the camp experienced problems similar to the late-seventies tent city and was shut down after a short time. SHOC’s current campaign began in the summer and fall of 2002. Thus far it has included an ongoing appeal to city officials for a place to camp, and a number of public actions and demonstrations that have gained attention in the news media if not a large attendance of homeless people. Incidentally, estimates of Sacramento’s nightly homeless population are about the same as Portland’s, around 1600.

It is difficult to divide the interviewees perfectly into camps of advocacy and opposition. There are two wholehearted advocates of a tent city–the two homeless activists–and only one wholehearted opponent, the Sacramento police captain. Even the latter individual says that he would support a tent city if city policy supported it, although he believes this is not likely to happen. The more sympathetic representatives of city government expressed reservations about the tent city’s ability to maintain hygiene and sanitation; its physical and mental health benefits for residents; and the ultimate viability of the tent city cause.

One clear pattern visible in the responses is that Portlanders share an awareness of their city’s special political, cultural, even spiritual qualities that Sacramentans lack in regard to Sacramento. (They are also largely unaware of Portland’s reputed uniqueness.) Jack Tafari’s statement that "it’s something in the water" sums up the Portlanders’ somewhat glossy-eyed view of their city’s idiosyncrasy. This view of Portland, or the lack thereof, superseded all boundaries, between homeless and official, advocate and opponent, except the geographic one. It might be noted, perhaps in support of the claim of Portland’s difference, that everyone I interviewed in Portland fell more or less unequivocally into the "advocate" camp.

These patterns and others are visible in the following tables relating interviewees to their positions and responses:

The belief that tent city residents can maintain law and order crosses geographic lines more distinctly than it crosses the lines between advocate, neutral, and opponent. I take this as an indicator of Dignity Village’s proven track record in maintaining peace and safety. Of all interviewees, only the leader of D.V. was convinced that the tent city could serve as a viable option for new homeless after some period of operation. This may reflect either the reality of a high vacancy rate at D.V., of which other parties are unaware, or Tafari’s "pitching" for his cause. Both the SHOC representative and the representative of the Portland commissioner’s office agreed that a tent city would or does reduce the visibility of homeless people downtown; but the Portlander’s take on this that the most vocal, chronic, and activism-prone homeless had been given a cause to occupy themselves. When posed the same question, the Sacramento supervisor responded impromptu that he did not think the homeless at a tent city would agree not to go downtown in return for a permit from the city government, an idea I had not in the least anticipated.

The question of causes of homelessness prompted a variety of responses that fall into fairly clear-cut categories. All the Portlanders, the homeless advocate in Sacramento, and none of the Sacramento city officials, mentioned economic change and the loss of affordable housing as causes of homelessness. Sacramento officials focused on the refusal of services and homelessness as a "lifestyle choice". Jack Tafari proposed a twist on an old English formulation, which separated the "sturdy beggars", men capable of work, from the "deserving poor", those too crippled or feeble-minded or insane to work. Tafari’s take on this division (which he acknowledges as real, placing himself among the "sturdy beggars") is that the sturdy beggars have taken on the role of caring for and protecting the deserving poor, and that D.V. is an example of this widespread phenomenon.

Only the homeless advocates believed that living in a tent city would benefit the residents’ physical health more than living in a shelter. Even Jack Tafari had reservations about the environmental safety of D.V.’s current site. On the other hand, opinions on the mental health more mixed, with Portlanders once again being unanimous in the belief that D.V. was psychologically better than a shelter, and only Paula Lomazzi believing this in Sacramento (although Officer Mark Zoulas, a disillusioned, former strong advocate of tent cities was somewhat neutral and open to the idea that self-governance could have mental benefits). The belief that tent city residents would be more likely than shelter residents to move on to stable homes cut perfectly across the official/activist line, with both homeless activists believing this was the case, and all officials doubting or denying it. No one believed that the homeless population was either strictly local or strictly transient; everyone admitted a mix of both groups. Portlanders tended to see all Oregonians as local to their area, while the Sacramentans tended to be more regional, extending only as far as the whole of Northern California, in their definitions of local. The identification of the opposition to the tent city varied both geographically and across the official/activist divide. Paula Lomazzi cited land developers as the constituency most potently opposed to the tent city in Sacramento; Max Fernandez cited soccer parents and Little League teams, but above all the general users of parks. (This assessment is corroborated by Officer Zoulas’ statement that many camping tickets he issues are caused by bike-commuting "John Q. Citizens" who regularly send "tirades" by e-mail to their city councilperson, about homeless people they have seen from the bike trail and how this is evidence that police are not doing their jobs.) Jack Tafari believed that the beneficiaries and operators of the current system of "maintaining and controlling homelessness", shelter and service bureaucracies, were the main political adversaries of Dignity Village. The Portland officials, on the other hand, cited NIMBYism, an observation borne up by the current location of the tent city: a polluted site adjacent to a state prison, a slough and an empty field. Everyone in the study agreed that a tent city would or does not impact the rate of shelter bed vacancies.

Another recurring theme was the structural difference, or lack thereof, between a tent city and a traditional homeless shelter. From the official perspective, the creation of rules (no violence, drugs, or alcohol) that are essential to a tent city’s legitmacy, puts the tent city leadership in the category of service providers and shuts out the service-resistant population just as shelters do. The homeless activists, and the Portland officials to some degree, believe that a housing option "by and for" homeless people can indeed serve the otherwise unhousable, but they fear (or in Jack Tafari’s case, struggle against) the formation of class distinctions between leadership and population in the tent city, and between the tent city and the general homeless population. (As Tafari puts it, the "upper middle homeless".)

Answers to other questions in the study, such as that of whether a tent city would draw homeless people from other places, tended to be vague or tangential.

Assuming that self-governing spaces for homeless campers are a good idea, SHOC and the homeless of Sacramento should adopt strategies that differ both from their own activities to date, and those employed by the leaders of Dignity Village. Site location is a challenge to be overcome, but more importantly, the leadership in Sacramento is charged with the difficult task of mustering support from a diffuse and highly individualistic homeless population. Rallies that include an incentive such as live music or free food might be a good start. Above all, the stronger personalities in the cause, those who can win over most people and argue against naysayers without losing their temper or dignity, must take their place as a vocal presence both among the homeless and in the wider community. Their arguments must also resonate with the homeless population; utopianism, socialism, and radical environmentalism are not likely to win broad support. From my experience on the streets, an appeal to fairness and common sense seems more appropriate. Without a large base of support among the homeless themselves, the public relations events that were so instrumental in building housed support for the tent city in Portland will never be possible in Sacramento.

Furthermore, a tent city movement in Sacramento must be tailored to the more strait-laced political culture of the city. Settling without permission will not appeal to Sacramentans as it did to Portlanders. SHOC is most likely to achieve its goal through the agency of a private property owner who permits a tent city on his land. Better still, they might mount a fundraising campaign to buy a piece of property on which to establish a tent city. This being done, it might be necessary to enlist the help of the "Mad Housers" or a similar radical-architecture group to create dwelling structures on the property that would pass at least the bulk of city inspections. This being done, the community could then campaign to improve its image, and by extension the image of the homeless, through gardens, art and craft fairs, theater programs, programs with schools and other such events that have been effective in improving Dignity Village’s reputation. Of course this is an ideal scenario, and unlikely to solve the immediate problem of people going to jail for sleeping in Sacramento.

That being said, further study is required to assess the ultimate benefits of tent cities for homeless people. Marshall Runkel in Portland lamented Dignity Village’s inhospitability to evaluation work, which he sees as the leadership shooting itself in the foot. The lack of data on Dignity Village as a "program" allows all parties to maintain their own, politically biased version of its success or failure rate by any standard. Furthermore, there is universal agreement that the population served by a tent city is a "drop in the bucket" of the homeless population. A nationwide network of tent cities might do a great deal to improve the public image of the homeless, but short of opening the floodgates to third-world style shantytown development, such projects will never house all the unhoused if homelessness goes on at current rates.

My greatest regret in my conduct of this study was the fact that four of my interviewees (Max Fernandez and Bob Mitchell in Sacramento; Marshall Runkel and Molly Rogers in Portland) were interviewed in pairs. In both of these team interviews I noticed that the "minority" party (Hispanic, female) was less vocal than the white male in each pairing. In many cases I have had to assume that the non-interruption of the less vocal party amounted to agreement with the statements of the more vocal party. In listening to my tapes I also noticed a tendency of mine to digress and talk about my own opinions, particularly when I am speaking with someone whom I believe shares my views and some of my experience. In the future I will try to counteract both these tendencies, that of bureaucrats to come in teams, and my own to pontificate.

The Portland Police Department refused my request for an interview. Dignity Village residents attribute this to pending civil rights lawsuits, regarding the treatment of homeless people, against the department. The Portland officials I spoke to believe there may be a difference of opinion between cops on the street and their commissioner, Mayor Katz. A truly balanced study would include police from both cities. I thank the Sacramento Police Department for their openness and commitment of time to my research.