![]() ![]() I’m also sympathetic to the deep resistance both sides have to policing, rounding up, imprisoning or just displacing people from land that could be described as not their responsibility. I’m sympathetic to them wanting each other to own up to their responsibilities. I doubt we’re unique in Memphis in that where the city has no right of way and the state does, the city will not enforce, and the reverse is true. The second part of the solution was clarifying jurisdiction. This interview is about sites on State right of way, which is beyond the control of the City, and therefore beyond our set of permissions. Liza’s team and our organization’s thought-out discomfort with encampments is why there are relatively few tent encampments in Memphis today. We run 120 hours a week, all day, every day, snow, ice, like the mail used to be. Following up on people in hotels and when they get out of treatment and doing all the remarkable work to find people where they are and help them make a solid step away from living outside. We had already built an Outreach team, led by Liza Hubbard, who is the embodiment of wisdom from our organization in the field. It was a two-part solution, and one part we already had. What was the solution and approach to untangle this? You’re exactly right, I did want to get in the middle of it. ![]() From here it’s easy to see how we’re implicated: our people are the ones living outside, and our partners are the ones stalemated in the search for a solution. We provide an important service for maintaining the civic commons. One click further out, we design nuanced solutions for gaps left by HUD program compliance, and we partner with government, NGOs and philanthropists to fund most of our pilot and long term projects. At the micro level, we are experts at co-developing paths out of homelessness for the endless variety of individuals who seek our help. Why did you want to get into the middle of that?įor a lot of reasons, but the through line is that our organizational value is derived from our capacity to solve extremely difficult problems. You had the City pointing at the State, and the State pointing back at the City. Even now that there is a law, there is a resistance to enact it. My experience has been that there are always people against what you do. In one way the law gave substance to anxieties on a continuum of concern for and against people sleeping outside or just being visibly poor outside, but I have not noticed a stronger divide. Agree or not, the TN law is policy reality now, and the new question is “how do we manage compliance on this new policy initiative?”ĭo you think the divide between people who want to, reasonably perhaps, enforce the law and those who favor less intervention has gotten worse? Why? People are ashamed, both the people living outdoors and the people who walk or drive by, and that shame drives anger or compassion or any number of easier things to feel, including new legislation. The context for the Tennessee law is the existence of extreme poverty and of literal homelessness and the prevalence of panhandling and the growth of encampments in cities across the country. He said that "homelessness is America’s shame,” and I think he’s right. ![]() He had a couple of Masters degrees, one in public policy, and I had briefed him on our programs, but when he saw the way human centric design embodies the program elements on both sides of the desk, he was inspired to find me and tell me about why it was so meaningful. His first day with us we had him sit at the front desk on our primary campus and watch people come through and be greeted by Terri Conley’s giant smile or Sam Smith’s comforting eyes. His name is Sharif Hossain, and he is from Bangladesh. Let me quote a doctoral candidate at the University of Memphis who came to work with us this Summer. ![]()
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