Sara Cline, a Portland, Oregon-based Report For America AP fellow, documented how liberal cities from Seattle to Austin, Texas, to New York, are taking a far more aggressive approach in dealing with homelessness as they emerge from the pandemic.
Cities that for years tolerated tent encampments in public parks and public spaces are responding to fed-up business owners and residents who say the levels of street disorder are too high. But people who work with the unhoused say newly elected mayors are targeting a vulnerable population to score political points, rather than dealing with the underlying issues of addiction and housing affordability.
Tents housing people experiencing homelessness are set up on a vacant parking lot in Portland, Ore., Dec. 8, 2020. In February 2022, the mayor of Portland banned camping on the sides of certain roadways, and officials are exploring other aggressive options to combat homelessness.
AP Photo / Craig Mitchelldyer
Workers, background, place a tent into a garbage truck during the clearing and removal of several tents at an encampment in Westlake Park in downtown Seattle, March 11, 2022.
AP Photo / Ted S. Warren
A person walks past a tent with a sign on it that reads “services not sweeps,” at a homeless encampment across the street from City Hall in downtown Seattle, March 1. 2022.
AP Photo / Ted S. Warren
Mark Bannister plays with his dog Amelia in a camp for homeless people along the American River Parkway in Sacramento, Calif., Feb. 24, 2022. Bannister said many people lacking housing do not want to go to shelters in Sacramento because pets are not allowed.
AP Photo / Rich Pedroncelli
Sean Barry covers his tent with a plastic tarp to help shield him from cold weather as prepares for a night in downtown Sacramento, Calif., Feb. 24, 2022.
AP Photo / Rich Pedroncelli
A person sleeps beside a shopping cart as a pedestrian passes in front of a store-window advertising the future opening of a Rolex watch store in downtown Seattle, Jan. 31, 2022.
AP Photo / Ted S. Warren
Graffiti protesting sweeps of homeless encampments is shown March 11, 2022, on a notice advising that the Westlake Park area of downtown Seattle will be cleared.
AP Photo / Ted S. Warren
New York Mayor Eric Adams rides the subway to City Hall on his first day in office in New York, Jan. 1, 2022. With a plan to bar people from sleeping on trains or riding the same lines all night, Adams is making a push to try to remove people experiencing homelessness from the city’s sprawling subway system.
AP Photo / Seth Wenig
A man sleeps in a subway car in New York, Feb. 21, 2022. Mayor Eric Adams is making a push to bar people from sleeping on trains or riding the same lines all night.
AP Photo / Seth Wenig
Cline worked with AP photographers Ted Warren in Seattle and Rich Pedroncelli in Sacramento, California, to document the increased camp sweeps and highlight the issues of people living on the street.
Her story was one of only two non-Ukraine stories in AP’s top 10 for reader engagement over the weekend and was still going strong into Monday with some 272,000 pageviews.