End camps

Protect all, neighbors and homeless

Homeless encampments don’t normally have power generators and big-screen televisions. But there’s nothing normal about the tent cities that have sprung up beneath freeway overpasses near Minute Maid Park and in Midtown.

These long-term homeless sites have proven themselves hazardous to the public and dangerous for inhabitants.

Violence has become a regular occurrence at and around the tent encampments. The presence of urine, feces and garbage poses a sanitation hazard not only to the homeless residents, but for the city as a whole.

In an effort to discourage extended camping on public property, the Turner administration passed new laws in May to discourage the sites as they exist. The goal was to balance the rights and needs of the homeless with the concerns of nearby neighborhoods. This meant making it illegal to set up tents in a public place and to require that any personal belonging must fit inside a three-foot cube.

Rather than working to find a solution that benefits the homeless and the neighborhoods, the ACLU of Texas filed an emergency petition to block enforcement, and U.S. District Judge Kenneth M. Hoyt granted petitioners a temporary restraining order in August.

Hoyt found that the city didn’t challenge the fact that “the emergency shelters in Houston are full and have been so for years.” He noted that homeless individuals “wait in lines, daily, at the five shelters ... only to be turned away.”

In the long run, Houston needs a facility similar to Haven for Hope in San Antonio. This would be a onestop shop for homeless services that features open intake 24/7 and has space for the city’s Homeless Initiatives and local non-profits. It will take time and money before Houston has our own Haven for Hope, but the tent encampments are not a viable stop-gap solution.

Since the judge issued the stay, the number of tents in Midtown has grown from 40 to 102, and there have been two murders and a stabbing at the Midtown encampment in the last 30 days.

The latest victim, a resident of the Midtown encampment, died of a single gunshot and was found in a parking lot Tuesday night.

The Texas Department of Transportation could ameliorate the deteriorating situation by filing trespass actions against the individuals camping out on state land. But instead, the agency is contributing to the stalemate by sitting on its hands.

Everyone has a right to use public space, but no one has a right to monopolize it. The injunction doesn’t remove Houston’s most vulnerable from harm’s way. The ACLU should drop its opposition to this reasonable ordinance.