In Cities’ Rush to Clear Homeless Camps, People Have Been Crushed to Death

Politics|In Cities’ Rush to Clear Homeless Camps, People Have Been Crushed to Death

Cornelius Taylor’s promise to visit his family this past Christmas was one of many he had broken in his decades living on the streets. But Darlene Chaney could not stay mad at the troubled cousin raised as her brother. When he called soon after the holiday from the ragged encampment he called home, she made plans to take him to a movie.

They never spoke again.

A few weeks later, a clearance crew descended on the Atlanta site, a block from the historic Ebenezer Baptist Church, and their heavy equipment crushed his tent as he lay undetected inside.

With homelessness at a modern peak, leaders as ideologically different as President Trump and Gov. Gavin Newsom of California are demanding the destruction of more encampments, arguing they spread fire and crime, block traffic, impede business and commandeer whole city blocks, covering sidewalks with needles and waste.

The Supreme Court bolstered their efforts last year by ruling that authorities could ban public sleeping.

After an encampment fire closed a major Atlanta highway, Mayor Andre Dickens, a progressive Democrat, began a campaign last year to remove encampments under bridges, saying the people living in them posed threat to themselves, their companions and the city.

“It impacts schools, it impacts commerce, and it impacts people’s lives,” he said of the road closure.