Tent City
By now, I am sure you have seen with your own eyes (or are at least aware) of the tent cities that have sprung up in and around uptown Charlotte. I recently contacted Roof Above and they invited me for a ‘tour’ for lack of a better word.
As an elected official, it is my responsibility to find out all I can about matters for which I must vote, allocate funds, and develop policies. I was acutely aware that these are people’s homes. I would not show up at anyone’s home unannounced, and it is no different with Tent City.
There are some myths and misinformation that I want to help clear up, as well as giving you some opportunities to help.
1—If there is anything they want the public to know it is this: While intentions are good and love-driven, dropping off donations of food, tents, tarps and clothing is not helpful. The food rots which attracts rats. The clothes get wet and no one will touch them. Any shoes that aren’t boots are useless (in some dumped items they found high heels, flip flops and bathing suits). Tents and tarps get fought over. Please direct your donations to any of the organizations below. 80% of the trash you see when you ride by is a result of people dumping clothes and other items that have gone unused.
2—For each person living in the encampments, there are 2-3 tents. The extra tents are used for storage. Some tents have been abandoned as the resident has moved into a shelter. For example, one encampment that is about a block long is full of tents, tarps, blankets, trash. It appears several people live there. But in fact, no one does. One person lived there and she has since moved into a shelter. All of her belongings have been abandoned.
3—Residents are offered beds in hotels or shelters. There is room. However, these folks fear Covid19 and in some cases, they fear other people.
4—Substance abuse and mental health play a large role currently in placing these individuals into homes. Shelters forbid drug use.
5—There are no children under the age of 16 living in the encampments.
6—The residents of the encampments have always been here. Fears of Covid19 have driven them out of the shelters and thus Tent City is born. Homelessness has always been a problem, but now our homeless population is not hidden in shelters. They are visible. Maybe Covid19 is a blessing in this respect: I have never heard so many people talking about homelessness.
Homelessness is a complicated and expensive problem. Housing is absolutely the answer to eradicating homelessness. It would have to involve services of health, mental health, food, wellness, job training and so on. I have hope that we can find the answer. Right now, what we can do is to help the least of these.
Here are some organizations who can help guide you in your desire to help. Please contact any one of them before dropping anything off at the encampments. Thank you!
Block Love CLT: https://blockloveclt.org/
Hearts Beat As One: http://heartsbeatasonefoundation.org/
Roof Above: https://www.roofabove.org/roof-above-coming-soon-v2/