“We’re people too:” The Impact Of Homeless Camp Sweeps

As Christina Ralson looks around the place that’s been her home for months, she’s hit with waves of memories.

The BBQ pit in the corner where she would make a “bomb” stir fry.

The corner where her partner got accidentally skunked while cleaning by a skunk they affectionately named “Pepe Le Pew.”

The area where her cats roamed, the birds she used to hear sing at night. Even smiling fondly at the memory of the raccoon who used to terrorize her cats.

“He was fat,” Ralson jokes.

For Ralson, home was a camp she set up in the woods behind the Gus Garcia Recreation Center. But now she has to leave. Last month, the city of Austin started clearing areas across the city as part of a new homeless encampment management plan. Several have occurred in Rundberg. City officials say the goal is to meet local and state law requirements while also connecting individuals with housing and services. But many individuals like Christina have found themselves with no clear direction on where to go.

“I just want everybody to understand that we’re human,” Ralson says. “We are people too.”

Ralson says this was her first time experiencing a sweep. She says she was approached by a team of officers who told her and others that they had two weeks to leave. This is part of the new approach being taken by the Homeless Strategies and Operations office. First, camps are identified by HSO staffers. HSO and non-profit partners then work to connect individuals with services. Next, Austin Police Department officers will give a notice that the camp is going to be cleared. Finally teams of APD officers and Austin Resource Recovery workers will remove items from the camp. HSO staffers are also onsite to offer resources. But in the moment, Ralson says trying to decide what to take and leave behind was challenging.

“It's hectic because you have to decide what you're going to take with you and what you're going to leave behind,” Ralson says. “And you have a lot, like a lot of stuff, and some of the things you don't want to get rid of because somebody gave it to you, or it's one of your favorites.”

But on top of trying to choose what she can carry, she says it’s also just been stressful.

“It's stressful, draining, but then you also, when you try to sleep and get rest, you just sit there like or lay there and you can't fall asleep because you're stressing,” says Ralson.

She’s not alone in losing sleep. Mark Hilbelink is the executive director at the Sunrise Homeless Navigation Center. His organization has worked with the University of Texas to study health impacts of homelessness, including sleep deprivation.

“It came out that most people are never sleeping more than three hours at a time,” Hilbelink says. “[It] just creates this really chaotic reality for a lot of people experiencing homelessness. And unfortunately, sweeps don't reduce chaos. They increase it.”

Ralson says she was offered shelter at the Marshalling Yard but was worried about being able to keep all three of her cats – Hershey, Evie and Nutcracker.

“They’re my babies,” she says while cuddling Hershey kisses.

This is a barrier many homeless individuals face when it comes to shelters, according to Eli Cortez. Cortez is a community organizer with Vocal TX, an advocacy group that has been pushing back against the sweeps. He says that many shelters won’t let couples stay together or won’t allow pets.

“So they refuse shelter because who wants to leave their family member behind?” Cortez says.

There are few shelters that will allow couples to stay together, or allow pets. But advocates say the issue is there are too few shelter beds at all. Hilbelink says there are only enough beds for one person out of every six people experiencing homelessness.

“I think the reality is until we invest more in shelter beds, if that is the kind of strategy that we want to embrace, we're just not going to have enough beds to put everyone,” Hilbelink says.

HSO director David Gray says his team is pursuing other avenues besides shelter beds to help people who are experiencing homelessness, like family reunifications, financial investments to help people get into housing, and checking if individuals have been accepted into a voucher program.

“We continue to look for opportunities for us to add more shelter beds to our system,” Gray says. “So shelter is a resource, but it's not our only resource.”

Ralson is just one of dozens of people impacted by these sweeps. She says the sweeps have made her feel like she he has no place to go. Although she isn’t sure what her next move is, she knows that she’ll miss her old camp and more importantly, the memories she was able to make.

“I am gonna miss this place,” Ralson says. “So it's like a lose-lose situation for me. That’s what it feels like at least.”