August 12, 2009 (LPAC)—Cities all across the U.S. are in various stages of approving, and even supplying minimal services for tent cities of the homeless, because of the surge in unemployment and desperation. The sizable metropolitan areas with approved space for the homeless parking lots, campgrounds, riversides or other public areas include Nashville, Tennessee; Ontario, California; Lacey, Washington (near Olympia, the capital), and others.
Today in Tampa, Florida, city leaders planned a vote on whether to approve tent cities, a measure which was drawn into being an "Anti-Tent City" coalition as well. The local Catholic Charities want permission to create a homeless encampment of 200 people.
The numbers of dispossessed and out-of-work citizens everywhere, has put before local governments the apparent option of reversing standing vagrancy laws, and instead providing minimal services and some order to the desperate. There seems no other recourse under the "we are recovering" line from Washington. In Illinois, local ministers have asked the Champaign City Council to legalize homeless settlements of 50 people. In California, the City of Ventura in July revised its laws to permit homeless people to stay overnight in their cars in designated locations.
Nashville's Metropolitan Homeless Commission's Director, Clifton Harris stresses that there is nowhere else to put people, except in approved tent cities, because the shelters are all full, with waiting lines and lists. Nashville is now providing portable toilets, garbage collection and a mobile medical van. Link:
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