Originally published by Deceleration, a nonprofit online journal producing original news and analysis responding to our shared ecological, political, and cultural crises.
Encampment sweeps in unhoused communities result in thousands of unnecessary deaths every year, a former City of San Antonio outreach worker writes.
Our team regularly distributed Naloxone — or Narcan, a drug proven effective in reversing opioid-related overdoses — to encampments in the area. Negotiating stigma, shame, criminalization, vicarious trauma, failing systems, and structural violence with these walking wounded, I would leave my clients with sterile syringes, cotton, tourniquets, cookers, water, alcohol prep pads, Band-aids, condoms—and Naloxone.
in January 2023, according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Point-in-Time count. However, skepticism exists among researchers and those who work in homelessness services regarding the accuracy of this data, given that the count is done on a single night in January and is based on an in-person survey where volunteers are deployed to encampments that are subject to constant sweeps.
Though they claim to be about health and safety, these policies have dire consequences for the health and well-being of those they displace—especially in a time of rapidly accelerating climate change driving extreme temperaturesby a team of public health researchers and houseless advocacy organizations highlights the dire health consequences of displacing people experiencing unsheltered homelessness, especially those who inject drugs.
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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