Should Worcester Allow Homeless To Camp? No Easy Answers, Experts Say

WORCESTER, MA — Late in October 2021, Worcester police and city human services workers cleared a homeless camp along the Blackstone River behind the Walmart, displacing about 20 campers.

A camp resident named Shawn interviewed after the sweep said he moved behind the Walmart after he was evicted from another encampment along Providence Street, located up a hill and under power lines behind an American Legion hall.

On Aug. 4, Worcester police, National Grid workers and city human services workers returned to that hill behind the American Legion hall to clear a new encampment. The sweep pushed out up to 40 people, according to Worcester Sucks.

The shuffling of campers from site to site underlines a critical problem facing Worcester and countless communities across America: sweeps don't stop people from living outdoors without an adequate supply of permanent housing available — and sweeps set homeless residents back by taking away a sense of stability.

Local social service groups are working on building more housing specifically for homeless residents, but many of those projects are a year or more away. Combined, the number of planned units likely won't house the city's entire unsheltered population.

Because of a rising homeless population and a lack of housing, homelessness experts say Worcester may be at a point where leaders need to examine a policy change: either amnesty for people living outdoors or exploring rapid housing options that other cities and states have pursued as a stopgap while new housing is under construction.

Experts emphasize that Worcester needs to act soon. In April, outreach workers told the Worcester City Council that the homeless population had grown 43 percent over the previous year. Of the 496 homeless residents, about 120 were living outside, an annual count found.

"I would love to engage in a conversation on all options to resolve the unsheltered population living on the streets," Central Massachusetts Housing Alliance Executive Director Leah Bradley said in a recent interview when asked about a change in the city’s approach to homeless camps.

City Policy Doesn't Include Tents

Outreach workers with the Quality of Life Task Force gave the Providence Street campers about two weeks notice before the Aug. 4 sweep. The city offered residents treatment services and space in a shelter, but like other sweeps, many residents declined a shelter bed.

One camp resident, identified as TJ, told Worcester Sucks he wished the city and homeless residents could reach a compromise on outdoor camping.

"There’s a workaround here where if they’re willing to compromise, so are we," TJ told reporter Bill Shaner.

In late August, Worcester Patch asked acting City Manager Eric Batista about that compromise: Why doesn't Worcester set up an area for homeless people to camp with facilities like portable toilets, trash cans and regular access to outreach workers?

A spokesperson sent this statement in response:

"The city of Worcester is committed to assisting unsheltered individuals with services needed to break the cycle of homelessness," Batista spokesman Robert Burgess said in an email. "City leadership believes in a housing first approach and that everyone deserves to have a roof over their head. We’re working with state, federal, nonprofit and private partners to increase services provided and to develop more units for unhoused individuals in the city."

Asked to clarify the city manager's position on sanctioned camps specifically, Burgess said there was nothing more to add.

Batista in late August appeared on the Talk of the Commonwealth radio show, where host Hank Stolz asked if sanctioned camps might be on the table. During the interview, Batista noted campers had already returned to the Providence Street area after the American Legion sweep.

But Batista also didn't endorse setting up a sanctioned camp, conjuring images of one of the largest outdoor homeless communities in the U.S.

"Do we allow an area like a Skid Row in Los Angeles?" Batista said. "Is that something the city of Worcester wants to have?"

In an October 2021 interview after the sweep behind Walmart, Worcester Health and Human Services Commissioner Dr. Matilde Castiel said it was "not a consideration at the moment" to allow sanctioned encampments. Castiel also said the city wants to get homeless people into real housing.

City officials often talk about a "housing-first approach" — but growth in housing units for the homeless happens slowly. A few new planned housing developments won't be open for months, and won't be enough to fit the estimated 120 people living outdoors in Worcester.

The Worcester Housing Authority on Aug. 29 broke ground on a 24-unit development along Lewis Street for homeless people that will also provide support services. The project, called A Place To Live, could be complete by next summer.

A second development sponsored by the South Middlesex Opportunity Council along Winfield Street with 18 units received state funding in March 2021, but it's not clear when construction will start.

There's also a 21-unit tiny home village planned for a parcel along Stafford Street. Work on that project has not started, but a city spokesperson said it's "expected to be underway soon." When the project was announced in July 2021, officials said it could be open by summer 2023.

No Good National Model

Homeless policy experts say sanctioned camps aren't always a good idea. States like Nevada and Texas have tried sanctioned homeless camps, but typically as a tactic to criminalize camping outside those sanctioned areas.

"Declaring some encampments as sanctioned implies that other camping sites are illegal," said Lily Milwit, an attorney with the National Homelessness Law Center.

Other states also face different legal standards on homelessness than Massachusetts.

The federal court case Martin v. Boise from the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit — which covers Alaska, Oregon, California, Washington, Hawaii, Montana, Nevada, Arizona and Idaho — held that it's unconstitutional to punish people for sleeping outside if there isn't adequate shelter space nearby. The U.S. Supreme Court endorsed the ruling when it declined to hear Boise’s appeal of the Martin decision in 2019.

In Spokane, Wash., a large homeless camp has been set up on property owned by the Washington State Department of Transportation. City officials have asked the state to clear the 600-person camp, but the the state declined citing a lack of shelter space. At the same time, Spokane is exploring a public camping ban that would skirt Martin vs. Boise by prohibiting outdoor sleeping in very specific areas at specific times.

Milwit said her organization wants governments to focus on funding housing for unsheltered residents and wraparound services. But in the interim, the homeless should be offered services where they live, even if that's a tent. Even though camps are “problematic,” Milwit said sweeps can be worse, setting people back on their journey toward housing. Sweeps also scatter the homeless, cutting their ties to outreach workers.

"Homelessness is the result of no choices," she said. "Telling them where they can or cannot be homeless is the ultimate egregious indignity."

MA Hasn't Tried Camps

Kelly Turley, the associate director of Massachusetts Coalition for the Homeless, said there are no examples of cities or towns in Massachusetts — or in nearby states — setting up sanctioned camps.

In Northampton, city officials set up portable toilets and handwashing stations that a community of homeless living along the Manhan Rail Trail were able to use during the height of the pandemic. But the city removed those when private facilities in the downtown area began to reopen, said Mayor Gina-Louise Sciarra chief of staff Alan Wolf. He said that the amenities were not intended to be a kind of sanctioned camp.

Boston swept a large encampment near the intersection of Melnea Cass Boulevard and Massachusetts Avenue in January (although the camp has returned in recent weeks). City officials said about 154 people were moved into housing, and outreach workers counted about 100 people who continued to live on the streets.

One effort to house people living at Mass and Cass involved a village of sheds at Shattuck Hospital near Franklin Park. The approximately 18 cottages are each under 100 square feet and come with lockable doors, offering more privacy than dorm-style shelters. Some sheds are big enough for two people. A security guard watches over the village, and residents get access to services, showers and bathrooms on site.

One focus of homeless policy in Massachusetts has been a bill of rights for unsheltered people. State Sens. Rebecca Rausch, D-Natick, Michael Barrett, D-Waltham, Harriette Chandler, D-Worcester, and state Rep. Jack Lewis, D-Framingham, sponsored the bill in the most recent session, but it didn't move forward. Rhode Island was the first state to pass a homeless bill of rights in 2012.

One part of the Massachusetts bill would echo Martin vs. Boise, enshrining that people have the right to "rest, seek shelter from the elements, occupy a legally parked car, pray, eat, and avoid needless harassment in public spaces." It would also repeal a set of state criminal laws that outlaw various types of homelessness — including one law that allows cities and towns to create special police forces to arrest "tramps," and another that allows police to take "vagrants" to court if anyone complains about them.

"We want to make sure people aren't criminalized for sleeping outside in encampments when there aren't other alternatives," Turley said.

Like the Shattuck village, there are some examples of communities in Massachusetts creating housing for the homeless quickly and with relatively low investment, Turley said.

The state Department of Housing and Community Development is paying for 40 hotel rooms to house the homeless at two motels in Hadley and Amherst through March 2023. Those were opened after the shelter provider, Craig’s Doors, closed for the season last spring.

Hotels have been used across the nation as a quick way to house unsheltered people. Vermont expanded its emergency shelter program during the coronavirus pandemic, at one point housing about 2,500 people in vacant hotel rooms across the state. The pandemic-era program officially ended July 1, but the state is allowing the remaining 1,500 people in the program to stay in hotel rooms for 18 more months with the goal of finding permanent housing in the interim.

King County, where Seattle is located, has purchased 10 hotel properties over the past two years. That has allowed the county to create about 1,600 new units of housing — with some providing wraparound services — amid a raging housing affordability crisis in Puget Sound.

"They're not ideal and should be temporary, but it's important they're part of the portfolio," Turley said of hotel shelters.

Massachusetts does have the resources to create housing for the homeless, Turley said. The state ended the 2022 fiscal year in June with a $2.3 billion surplus. Gov. Charlie Baker has asked the state Legislature to spend about $840 million on specific projects — including some housing for the homeless — but that still leaves $1.5 billion, plus $2.2 billion left in federal stimulus funds related to the pandemic.

Worcester received $146 million in federal stimulus money and has only spent about $19 million so far — although every last dollar has been set aside for future spending. At the median rental price in Worcester of about $1,660 per month, according to RentCafe, it would cost Worcester $2.4 million per year to house 120 people, not including services like addiction and mental health care — and if 120 apartments were even available.

"We're really calling on state leaders to creatively and swiftly allocate those [funds] for the housing crisis," she said.

Open To Other Models

Bradley, the Central Massachusetts Housing Alliance executive director, said a possible sanctioned encampment may be an idea worth exploring, along with rapid housing options like the Shattuck village in Boston. The company that provided the individual cabins there, Pallet, has set up 63 villages across the U.S. and claims that most villages can be set up in as little as a day.

Bradley reiterated that many unsheltered Worcester residents don't want to go to shelters because it forces them to give up their privacy. Some shelters don't have spaces for nonbinary or trans people, others may not accept pets and couples, or people who are not sober. Shelter spaces like tents and Pallet cabins offer the privacy element that may be missing in Worcester, she said.

"I do think we're at a unique point right now," Bradley said. "We are seeing such a rapid increase in the homeless population, and the housing programs that are in production to provide supportive housing, they've been delayed."

Rents are rising, more people are becoming homeless all the time and another winter will be here soon, she said.

"I think we have to look at all the options out there," Bradley said.