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In 2023, Phoenix faced a court order to disperse a massive homeless encampment. Part of the city's response was to create a campground downtown for people experiencing homelessness. It's running smoothly, but the future of the site is uncertain as funding begins to dry up. From member station KJZZ, Katherine Davis-Young reports.
KATHERINE DAVIS-YOUNG, BYLINE: Earlier this year, Michael Travis was living in a Phoenix apartment when his rent increased almost 30%. Pretty soon, he faced the extremely stressful experience of living on the street.
MICHAEL TRAVIS: It's a different day every day. There's a lot of things that's going on. You got drugs going on out there. You got people dying outside.
DAVIS-YOUNG: He tried going to a homeless shelter, but he didn't feel much safer inside the crowded, chaotic facility. Then he got a referral to Phoenix's Safe Outdoor Space. It's a four-acre lot downtown with a huge shade structure covering about 200 tents pitched on AstroTurf. Travis has his own tent. He has his dog with him, and he says this is better than being on the street or in a shelter.
TRAVIS: These security are more thorough in what they do, and the staff as well.
DAVIS-YOUNG: The site has all the services that indoor shelters have, says Phoenix's Homeless Office director Rachel Milne.
RACHEL MILNE: So back here, we've got all of our restrooms, hand-washing stations, showers, laundry.
DAVIS-YOUNG: And even though guests sleep in tents, there's a warehouse in the middle where they can eat meals or escape the elements.
MILNE: This is what made this site so attractive to us. In addition to all of the shade out there, having a place where people could come inside in the summer or the winter or a monsoon.
DAVIS-YOUNG: Before this opened in 2023, a downtown homeless encampment had grown so large that neighbors sued and a judge ordered the city to clear the area. Officials wanted to offer shelter to all of the nearly 1,000 people camped there. But Milne says...
MILNE: We knew pretty quickly that not everyone was going to accept our offer of indoor sites.
DAVIS-YOUNG: So the city bought this industrial lot nearby to create another alternative. It wasn't the first of its kind. A 2023 study in the journal Urban Geography showed dozens of sites like this across the U.S. took off during the pandemic as homelessness increased, but tight quarters and shelters posed a health risk. But they're often controversial. In Phoenix, neighbors voiced concern that downtown was already burdened with most of the city's homeless services, and some asked why Phoenix would spend millions to house people in tents rather than building more shelters.
BILL MORLAN: One of my stipulations was that I really thought it needed to be a temporary solution.
DAVIS-YOUNG: Bill Morlan owns an electric supply business in the neighborhood. He asked city council to only approve the site for three years, allowing time to respond to the homelessness lawsuit but committing to an end date. The council agreed to that three-year limit. Two years in, homelessness continues to increase, and Morlan's feelings have changed. He says the campground hasn't been disruptive and it's still needed.
MORLAN: I would hope to see them continue to fund it at the levels that it's being funded and continue it.
DAVIS-YOUNG: Funding could be a challenge. The city has spent more than 6 million a year to operate the site, all of which has come from pandemic-era federal aid so far. Those funds expire in 2026, and Milne says it will be up to the city council to decide what happens to this site after its third year.
MILNE: Might not look exactly like this a year from now or two years from now.
DAVIS-YOUNG: But more than 2,000 people have now come through the Safe Outdoor Space. About a third have gone on to treatment, indoor shelter or housing. That's a better success rate than some other shelters, Milne says. While the future of the campground is uncertain, she says the last two years prove it can work. For NPR News, I'm Katherine Davis-Young in Phoenix.
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