Beyond revanchism? Learning from sanctioned homeless encampments in the U.S.

ABSTRACT

To manage the growing homelessness crisis, many U.S. cities have implemented sanctioned encampments (SEs): temporary, state-designated public spaces for camping where people experiencing homelessness (PEH) can receive key services. Praised as a more compassionate response to managing homelessness, some argue that SEs can invisibilize PEH and fail to address structural causes of the crisis. In this paper, we examine how SE managers navigate contradictory logics of care and compassion. We develop a theoretical model of SE management that arrays “revanchist” vs. “post-revanchist” approaches, construct a database of 50 existing SEs in the U.S., and then place these cases within our model. SE management approaches vary across our sample and do not follow expected patterns based on the political leanings of host city. Also, most SEs were categorized as “caring but controlling” whereas only 12% were considered “caring and autonomous.” These findings challenge assertions that homelessness management has moved “beyond revanchism.”

KEYWORDS:

• Housing policy
• homelessness
• tent cities
• sanctioned encampments

Acknowledgements

We acknowledge those that offered their insights on this study. We would also like to acknowledge the College of Architecture and Planning at the University of Colorado Denver.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by EVOLVE Grant Program, University of Colorado Denver: Safe Outdoor Spaces - A New Land Use Type for Denver and Beyond?