Safe Parking, Safe Camping, Proposal to the Vermont Legislature

Given that the lack of a consistent, private dwelling place to support life functions, recreation, relationships and employment is traumatic and problematic, for any member of the community of Vermont,

Given that the state sees a persistent stream of persons without permanent, stable housing,

Given that the quantity of housing has not been sufficient to accommodate everyone who lives here, and

Given that the cost of housing exceeds the available funds of many Vermont households,

It seems self evident that many persons are forced to live outdoors, to endure the elements and dangers to their persons and property, and

Given that if there were enough affordable housing, living outdoors would not be necessary,

It seems further self evident that persons so compelled depend upon the compassion and efforts of the community, state and local governments to provide safety and minimal services to maintain any semblance of normality, dignity and hope of a better life.

Therefore it is requested and proposed,

That the State require all municipalities to create plans to protect the safety and dignity of those forced to live outdoors;

That the State set standards for these plans, and create a method of review of these plans.

Writing such a plan:

The foundation of such a plan is an assessment of the number of homeless persons in the various categories of homelessness, both as a proportion of the statewide count and through direct assay of the town's residents. The plan would be based on a reasonable compromise between these numbers.

Rural, suburban and urban areas are not likely to distribute the homeless population proportionally, and the nature of homelessness varies dramatically across these community types. Moreover, the costs of planning for and accommodating a small and evanescent homeless population might be a burden for very low population towns. A few strategies are proposed to relieve this burden:

• The plan detail for each “provision” (below) may be scaled to the needs of the town, with appropriate evidence and testimony, and as agreed to by state reviewers. ¹
• Town plans may be consolidated into regional plans. A consolidation plan that includes all community types would be expected to provide more opportunity for efficiency in the delivery of services.
• A town might rely on a standard plan or template created by the state or regional planning commission,
• “Best practices” will provide guidance.

The environment in which homelessness occurs is complex, thus such plans must address:

• Where someone who is without housing can rest and reside without danger of being told to leave. There must be a viable, useful and specific alternate location.
• What the police response to encounters with the homeless wil be, and training in relation to.
• Provision of sanitary facilities, and disposal of surplus property and trash, including cleanup of abandoned camps.
• Assistance for medically endangered persons (example: insulin).
• Protection and recovery of vehicles and property contained within.
• Approach to non-permitted constructed housing.
• Provision of and engagement with social services.
• How the municipality proposes to address persons not compelled to live outdoors, who choose to.
• Procedures for giving notice when a campsite must be moved.
• Best response when criminal activity is discovered.
• Public review of the plan and the town's fidelity to it.

This proposal recognizes that persons are already camping and parking across the state, and rather than devise an entirely new system, proposes to add protections and employ existing services, to ensure that, when campers, parkers or other non-housed person is discovered, they can remain where they are or there is a location to which they may viably go.

This proposal contemplates State level review, but does not propose how. Some combination of human services, economic development, public safety, and advocates is suggested, and the Vermont Council on Homelessness might be the logical seat of oversight.

The intent of this proposal is to give rest and comfort to those who are homeless, by asking towns to address the concerns listed here, and commit to “best practices”.

1The homeless population for purposes of making this assessment should include all of those who live on public property or without permission on private property, generally: outdoors on the ground, in tents, in cars, campers or trailers, places of public accommodation such as an ATM or stairwell, and in abandoned properties without facilities. Housing which is unsuited to human habitation but is located on property owned or rented by the resident would not be included for purposes of plans to protect those who are forced to live outdoors. Protections for the housing marginalized are in order, but not under this proposal

Address to the joint Committees of the Vermont Legislature, January 19, 2020

I do not sit before you armed with piles of facts and figures, prepared to speak to specific legislation. I come before you to share my insights as an advocate who listens to, serves, and lives with those known as “homeless”. Since the day, at the age of 15, that I protested the abuse my father heaped on my brother, I have identified with the powerless, and fought to bring safety and dignity to them. Thus I come before you today, to address a specific source of danger and harm, in the relationship between the community of the unhoused, and the larger community.
If you attend our vigil later, you will hear my lyric portrayal of what it feels like to live unhoused. Here and now, I want to put before you the abject danger into which our society is plunging.
When young, old and middle aged lose the safety of their domicile with regularity, from illness, relationship disruption, and the failure of families to cohere and provide mutual support,
When opioid dependence and alcoholism plague the bodies and minds of so many,
When fear and stigma of those who dwell on the street is rising,
we are not facing a momentary, transient glitch in the functioning of our society and community.
We are confronted by the effects of the broad and pervasive social policy that underwrites our law and economy;
We are confronted by the consequences of our choice to privilege private wealth and ambition over the collective well being.
Not to say You are able to change these rules unilaterally; they are written at a federal and global scale, and come to us from human nature and history.
But you and we suffer the rot those rules promote: You and we, are the tree whose limbs are green and appear healthy, while the trunk rots from inside, and you, and we, must address that rot, because it affects you, and us. Homelessness isn’t just a problem, it’s a signal, And I am here to ask you to look at homelessness this way.
Recently in Burlington tensions have been rising between some who panhandle and use alleyways to eliminate waste, and the businesses nearby. The panhandling has grown aggressive, and the mess offensive. With some hand-wringing, and much real desperation, more privileged members of the community ask “What are we going to do?”. What if we do not look at this behavior as something to be corrected? What if we ask “What are we doing wrong?”. To this I would answer: raise the floor on the quality of life. Start by installing or opening bathrooms which can impart to the entire community the dignity of a place to eliminate waste in a socially acceptable way. These street practices are signals of rot, and if you want to arrest the rot, start by insisting on the social solidarity which provides dignity to the lives of those so situated.
Another way to arrest the rot of social indignity and loss of safety is to accommodate those who resort to living outdoors with policies I call “Safe Parking, Safe Camping.” You will have before you my brief of such a policy. It does not represent the only approach, but as an activist in the homeless community for four years, this is what I think will work. Essentially, the strategy is to recognize, in some form that is legal and provides safety to those who cannot afford housing, what already exists: people living in campers, cars, and tents, or sleeping on church lawns and in ATM booths. Already in some ways and in many communities, people are allowed to rest in peace, but in many ways and communities, they are not, and I am here to ask you to insist on safety and dignity for those who must live outdoors.
I am asking you to require every town to create a plan that provides “Safe Parking, Safe Camping”. I would give them a year to create a draft, a second year to evaluate their plans, a third year to implement them. The social and cultural challenges are significant; we are seeking to address the causes of social rot, we cannot expect instant changes.
I would also like you to pass the Homeless Bill of Rights, these are obvious measures to combat the rot that is signaled by homelessness, but after reading again the Homeless Bill of Rights, I don't think Safe Parking, Safe Camping fits as a "right". To state it as such would place a precipitate burden on towns, forcing them to respond without due planning or guidance. I think a separate bill, addressing public safety and accommodation of folks living desperately, would provide more time to listen, and find locally meaningful solutions. I think many municipalities do not have a problem because they are not hassling people, so their planning would be nominal, but in many others people who cannot find a place to live cannot get a good night sleep.
I do not want to create, under present conditions, a network of identified, specified homeless camps. I want to recognize current responses to the loss of housing, and bring them into relationship with the law and the communities in which they are. I want to add a layer of safety, and allow the practice of these policies to guide us as we respond to changing conditions. Allowing and expecting towns to write plans forces them to think about the most vulnerable, and consider their needs in the conduct of municipal business. It invites innovation, and allows us to discover "best practices", through the multiplicity of solutions from the multiplicity of towns.
Thank you for considering my testimony.

Address to the Vigil, Homelessness Awareness Day, Vermont Legislature, 2020

Yea! I love you!

Thank you for coming to our Vigil for the homeless, my friends.
Thank you, legislators, advocates and esteemed guests,
Thank you to the fourth graders who chose homelessness as their topic to study,
for standing with the community of those we call homeless.
Thank you, Especially, those of you who are without housing,
Who are here today.
You made a special effort to get here, and this vigil is for you.

We are here today to think about, feel about, and remember, you,
the Vermonters who in their daily lives have to ask
“How will I stay safe today?”
“How will I keep my possessions safe?”
“How will I eat today?”,
“Where can I park my car so it won’t get towed away?”,
“How can I get my car out of impoundment?”.
“How can I get my children to school?”
“Where will I sleep tonight?”
We are here today to remember you.
Because being Homeless is a condition of desperation,
And we want better for you.

So let us remember,
People who pay into the engine of profit
– those who rent and those who pay mortgages –
are given permission to claim a space as their own.
But if you can't work, and if you can't pay,
If you refuse to work two jobs,
just to give all your money to a landlord or a bank,
If you can't manage your life, wracked as you are by trauma,
or living in the misery of mental illness,
If you are broken, and have no resources,
Or if you have been driven from your home by domestic violence,
You can't get that permission.

So you sleep in places that aren't your own.
You sleep in public, on a sidewalk or in a parking garage,
where someone who is cruel can kick you, or worse,
where someone also desperate can steal your few possessions,
where someone, too privileged to see themselves in that huddle on the ground,
might complain to the police;
You sleep in public, in a car where you worry about being rousted from the depths of sleep,
You sleep in a dumpster that is warm, yet deadly,
You sleep scrambling from couch to floor from friend to friend.

And the question "Where can I sleep, that is safe?”
hangs like a cloud over the entire day,
because there is no place for you to rest,
that is your own.

Your community does ASPIRE to house you in hard-wall housing.
But if your community had the will, a sufficient will, to build that housing,
a sufficient will
to make that housing affordable to people living on Social Security,
or a minimum wage job,
if your community had the will to produce housing,
That someone working from her car
Or bouncing from couch to couch,
could afford,
if your community had the will to produce housing a drunk or an addict would want,
then we could put everyone in hardwall housing,
then we could impart to all of you the dignity and safety
of your own locked door,
and then the sidewalk, lawn, ATM booth, tent or broken-down camper,
would not be part of our continuum of housing.

But they are,
And living outdoors, under bridges, in tents, cars, campers, and dumpsters,
Sleeping on a blanket thrown on the ground,
are solutions we resort to,
are solutions in our continuum of housing,
and are solutions we, your community, need to plan for :

With safe places for camping, parking, and bedding down.
With enough safe, humane, shelters,
For adults, couples, dog owners, youth,
For she or he fleeing domestic violence,
For the addicted, the person in recovery, that person with social anxiety, or disability,
For the LGBTQ person, the traumatized, the mentally ill.

So let us write a homeless bill of protections
that guarantees safe parking and safe camping,
in every community across the state of Vermont,
Let us write a homeless bill of protections that can comfort you,
as you search for that safe place to sleep each night.

Thank you!

[this proposal serves as an accountability device. The protection of human rights isn’t always comfortable. But the protection of human rights may compel the just solution that is also preferable.]