Encampment sweeps in unhoused communities result in thousands of unnecessary deaths every year, a former City of San Antonio outreach worker writes.
During the seemingly endless slog that is summer in South Texas, the smell of cayenne pepper from the La Fiesta spice factory caustically mingles with engine exhaust, suspended and heavy in the suffocating humidity. In traffic, I creep slowly toward downtown through the vast skeleton of I-10, experiencing this stretch of my city as it was famously brought to the world in R.E.M.’s music video for “Everybody Hurts.
Moreover, Texas’s Good Samaritan Law, intended to allow bystanders to call 911 for an overdose without fear of arrest or prosecution, fails to protect people with a history of certain drug-related convictions orI wish I could say that Danny’s story is unique; sadly, it is not. Far removed from the sterility of the U.S.
Though conflicting with my values, the military offered me the privilege and subsequent purpose that comes from an education. It’s from this opportunity that, as a graduate student of medical anthropology, I’ve come to focus on what I saw in my own life and as an outreach worker: the health impacts of unsheltered homelessness and harm reduction.
Cities across the United States have adopted policies that target the unsheltered through what they euphemistically refer to as “encampment sweeps,” “abatements,” or “clean-ups,” practices legitimized through “quality of life crimes.”These are ordinances which prohibit sitting, lying down, camping, living in one’s vehicle, panhandling, and other actions up for interpretation, all of which strike a distinctly anti-homeless tone as laws against loafing and loitering have long done.
Similarly, a 2022 study based on in-depth interviews with unhoused people in Santa Clara County, California highlights the adverse health effects of encampment sweeps resulting in property confiscation, forced relocation to dangerous areas, and increased distrust in authorities.
This shift toward militarizing social services, coupled with austerity measures targeting social programs, resulted in a vast increase in unsheltered homelessness The absence of supportive services leads to increased morbidity and mortality among those living unsheltered, a finding that urges policymakers to prioritize compassionate and comprehensive approaches to address encampments, such as providing sanitation services—or, at the very least, stopping their unfounded claim that abatement policies are conducted to promote the health and wellbeing of those they target.
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