December 14, 2022
On December 14, 2022, the National Parks Service (NPS) evicted ten unhoused neighbors from a tent community in Scott Circle located in Northwest D.C.) in nearly freezing temperatures. Regrettably, only three of the ten individuals who were displaced are matched to a housing resource. Prior to closure notices, close to 24 people were living in this encampment.
Tomorrow, NPS will close an encampment in Ft. Reno Park, where only 25% of residents are matched to a housing resource. This week’s events are the result of new NPS procedures (released in late October 2022), which outline plans to evict and close all tent encampments on NPS land by the end of 2023.
At Miriam’s Kitchen, we are deeply concerned about the recent ramp-up of displacement-based approaches to homeless encampments (by both NPS and the D.C. government) over the past few months. We are especially disappointed that encampments are being closed during hypothermia season when tents and the community offered by encampments offer life-saving protection from the elements and that the procedure calls for the potential arrest of residents who refuse to leave encampments. The current approach is harming our unhoused neighbors, making the work of homeless service providers more difficult, and doing nothing to end homelessness.
Thanks to a recent surge in permanent housing resources, D.C. is on the verge of ending homelessness for 2,250 single adults — including encampment residents. We are hopeful that these investments will greatly decrease the presence of tents while also ensuring that people living in shelters are able to access housing that meets their needs. Evicting and closing encampments before these resources are utilized will make it harder to end homelessness because this approach displaces individuals and can make them harder to find, drains government and provider staff time and resources, and threatens client trust and rapport. As such, we strongly urge the National Parks Service to stop all encampment evictions and permanent closures.
While we recognize there are rare instances in which urgent health and safety concerns at encampments may necessitate intervention, these cases should be the exception, not the rule. In the event that such issues must be addressed, the intervention should:
- Address just that concern and not be used to justify the eviction of an entire encampment and/or the establishment of a
no-tent zone, - Follow best practices to ensure trauma-informed care,
- Be accompanied by case management services, including housing support, and
- Be conducted in close coordination with homeless outreach providers.
D.C. Can Be A National Example of Ending Homelessness with Compassion
Our 40 years of experience working with people living outside have taught us that housing — not displacement — ends homelessness. Removing individuals from encampments only pushes our unhoused neighbors further into the margins. D.C. currently has an unprecedented opportunity to show the nation that when housing is funded at scale, fewer people live outside because we’re able to connect them to life-saving housing solutions. Thanks to the collective advocacy of organizations and residents across the city, D.C. finally has the resources to make significant progress toward this shared goal of ending homelessness.
