Philadelphia Housing Action, in partnership with unhoused organizers currently experiencing homelessness, has initated two protest encampments that are demanding immediate solutions for Philadelphia’s unhoused residents.
This action was the result of many months of sustained outreach and relationship building with people who are currently experiencing homelessness. Philadelphia Housing Action has supported 4 different encampments in resisting displacement and service days this year alone. Many of the unhoused organizers we are partnered with have experienced displacement from encampments on as many as 4 occaisions just in 2020.
The James Talib Dean encampment on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway at N. 22nd St. was started in early June and has approximately 150 residents living in tents with running water and porta-potty’s for sanitation. There is also minimal electricity for refrigeration and phone charging.
The Camp Teddy encampment on Ridge Ave and N. 21st St., was started a few weeks later in order to focus attention on the Philadelphia Housing Authority (PHA) across from their newly opened $45m headquarters. Camp Teddy has approximately 25 residents and is a more primitive campsite with porta-pottys and porta-sinks for sanitation.
Both camps are demanding immediate solutions for the unhoused. After being shuffled around the city from camp to camp and repeatedly facing eviction and loss of property, unhoused organizers are demanding immediate solutions instead of continued harassment. The question organizers have for the city is “Where do we go?”
Neither encampment is intended as a permanent solution or model for dealing with homelessness, but encampment residents agree that conditions in the camps are preferable to living on the streets. In the camps residents have improved access to basic sanitation and are able to form communities of support for eachother as opposed to many of the options presented by the shelter system or other programs offered by the city which often discriminate against people with a history of drug use, who have criminal records, who have partners or who have jobs during the night shift.
For many residents of the encampments, the city’s shelter system does not feel safer than the street and is too close to their experience of prison or other forms of institutional trauma. Additionally, during the COVID-19 pandemic, the CDC and leading public health experts agree that living outdoors significantly reduces the risk of transmission for coronavirus as opposed to congregate (dormitory style) housing. With winter around the corner, Philadelphia Housing Action is urging the City to move as quickly as possible to create solutions for the unhoused that do not rely on congregate housing.
Although unhoused organizers are primarily seeking housing, many residents have accepted offers from the City for prioritized access to programs or federally funded prevention hotels. Philadelphia Housing Action supports any camp resident who wishes to access city services or otherwise leave the encampements and we actively work with the city to facilitate people getting priority placement into these programs.
Philadelphia Housing Action has in the past opposed the city’s Homeless Outreach Teams having direct access to the camps for the sole reason that this is a pre-requisite for the eviction of encampments under the City’s own ‘Encampment Resolution’ guidelines. That being said, both encampments are within walking distance of all of the City’s homeless services and all of the encampment residents have had many interactions and encounters with Homeless Outreach over their period of experiencing homelessness.
Nobody living at the camps wants to be there. The demand is for permanent housing options. Short of permanent housing, we will not leave willingly without somewhere better to go to. Simply evicting the camps and kicking people back out onto the street in exchange for vague promises of future opportunities is not an option anyone is interested in. We need solutions that work for people in the immediate future. We need the city to invest in its most vulnerable residents.
We need housing, now!