Jazmine Mapes has spent most of her life on the transfer.
When she was a younger little one, she shuttled from metropolis to metropolis in Southern California as her dad and mom broke up and obtained again collectively. Her dad was abusive, Mapes mentioned, and round age 9, she and her youthful brother began bouncing across the foster care system.
Now 31, Mapes has spent a lot of her grownup life homeless, residing in riverbeds and tents on the sidewalk. She’s handled common “sweeps” — cops and different metropolis employees ordering her to go away to allow them to clear the world.
Mapes has misplaced garments, sleeping luggage and — maybe most significantly — medicines for her anxiousness and despair. One cleanup crew threw away a photograph album crammed with footage of the 4 kids she gave up for adoption.
After a sweep, “I might simply keep in my despair,” Mapes mentioned. “I might keep getting excessive as a result of getting excessive was a method of me coping. Me not feeling.”
Native governments throughout the U.S. have more and more turned to sweeps and arrests because the variety of individuals residing on the nation’s streets exploded by almost 60% between 2015 and 2024. However rising proof exhibits that forcing individuals to maneuver can hurt their well being. That’s prompting a number of cities to attempt a brand new strategy in some circumstances, which specialists on homelessness say can do away with encampments, whereas additionally defending the well being of individuals residing there.
Metropolis and county officers say they should clear encampments to wash up extreme trash, tackle open drug use, and make parks obtainable to neighborhood youngsters. Elected leaders typically face strain from surrounding companies and residents to reply shortly.
Greater than 200 cities have outlawed sleeping exterior, and arrests for homelessness have spiked since a 2024 Supreme Courtroom choice gave native governments the inexperienced mild to disperse of us with out providing them shelter. President Donald Trump upped the strain this summer time with an government order that threatened to drag federal funding from any metropolis that didn’t make it more durable for individuals to arrange encampments.
Mapes along with her son on the web site the place she as soon as lived in a tent. In November 2023, Los Angeles metropolis employees carried out a sweep that compelled her and 65 others to go away their houses.
Proponents of clearing encampments say it’s inhumane to let individuals reside exterior in harmful and unsanitary circumstances. Native officers argue sweeps give individuals an opportunity to maneuver inside and obtain medical and social companies.
However advocates who work with homeless populations say individuals typically stay unhoused following a sweep. And quite a few research in recent times have discovered that clearing encampments with out providing individuals shelter can worsen their psychological and bodily well being.
Mapes remembers one chilly and moist November morning in 2023, when Los Angeles metropolis employees demanded that she and about 65 others go away the tents they’d been residing in throughout the road from Metropolis Corridor. The earlier night, Mapes’ ex-boyfriend had burned down her tent. “I used to be lined in ashes and filth,” she mentioned.
She was additionally pregnant. Her abdomen ached as she tried to avoid wasting what she might of her torched possessions. Mapes mentioned a police officer grabbed her arm and pulled her throughout the road. At a close-by lavatory, she began digging by her purse for cleaning soap to wash herself up. As a substitute, her hand landed on a bottle of drugs.
“I’m executed,” Mapes recalled considering. “I’m executed with everyone judging me. I’m executed with preventing in opposition to the world. I’m uninterested in lacking my youngsters.”
She swallowed “nearly the whole bottle of drugs.”
A good friend who had additionally been staying within the encampment discovered Mapes slumped over on a rest room. The good friend compelled her to vomit the drugs.
“Had that particular person not discovered me, I in all probability wouldn’t be right here,” Mapes mentioned.
Researchers in recent times have documented the well being impacts of sweeps. When of us with persistent circumstances are compelled to maneuver, avenue drugs groups who had been caring for them typically battle to seek out them once more. Vital medicines and medical provides — like wheelchairs or walkers — recurrently get thrown away in sweeps. And the repeated displacement can worsen psychological well being issues and reduce individuals’s belief in future provides of assist.
A big nationwide research revealed in JAMA: Journal of the American Medical Affiliation in 2023 estimated that sweeps enhance the chance of an infection, hospitalization and overdose amongst individuals who reside on the streets and inject medication. Lead researcher Josh Barocas mentioned the crew additionally discovered that displacement elevated a homeless particular person’s probability of dying prematurely.
“We’re substantial numbers of deaths,” Barocas mentioned — as a lot as a 25% enhance over 10 years, in line with the findings. “It’s laborious to disregard that from a scientific perspective.”
Barocas mentioned some metropolis officers criticized the research, calling it deceptive as a result of the researchers assumed that persons are not provided housing or companies when they’re compelled to go away an encampment. The research can also be based mostly on restricted and imperfect knowledge from a handful of huge cities that is probably not relevant to the remainder of the nation. And it says nothing in regards to the potential advantages of closing encampments to the broader group.
“We’re not making an attempt to inform you that [removing an encampment] goes so as to add three extra deaths or lower danger by 12.2572%,” Barocas mentioned. “We’re simply making an attempt to present you a way of what may work and what won’t work. When you proceed happening the trail of sweeps, then it appears like we’re going to trigger extra hurt to individuals than when you had been to go down a unique highway.”
In latest years, a number of cities have used a handful of finest practices that officers — and some specialists on homelessness — say can clear encampments whereas limiting the potential well being penalties of conventional sweeps.
Marc Dones led the Regional Homeless Authority in Washington’s King County, which incorporates Seattle, and is now a senior advisor for the Benioff Homelessness and Housing Initiative on the College of California, San Francisco. Dones mentioned a core precept of those new approaches is to verify, as typically as doable, that folks go from an encampment to long-term housing with applicable companies — versus going to giant shelters or simply transferring to a different sidewalk.
Mapes helps her son take his first steps.
Step one, Dones mentioned, is spending time attending to know the individuals in an encampment. “I have to know everybody who lives there. I have to know what their wants are and what motivates them,” Dones mentioned. This contains determining who has a severe psychological sickness, who wants dependancy remedy, and who has a job that is dependent upon entry to public transit.
The following step is matching individuals with the correct of housing. Historically, cities have provided individuals spots in giant congregate shelters when clearing encampments. However shelters provide little privateness, and so they typically don’t work for individuals with vital well being or dependancy points, or individuals who need to carry their companions or pets. Many cities in California — together with Los Angeles, San Jose and Berkeley — are changing outdated motels into short-term housing to present individuals their very own house and entry to companies whereas they anticipate one thing extra everlasting.
As soon as housing is discovered, Dones mentioned, cities ought to give encampment residents a number of weeks to organize to go away, after which transfer of us out steadily. Serving to individuals who might have been homeless for years make the transfer inside is usually sophisticated and overwhelming, so Dones recommends transferring solely 5 to 6 individuals per day.
Dones acknowledged that many communities want to incorporate regulation enforcement to plan clearings, however Dones argued police and sheriffs ought to have a restricted position in truly interacting with individuals in encampments. Analysis exhibits that police interactions could be traumatic for individuals residing on the streets and undermine belief in provides of assist. A number of native officers mentioned they attempt to lead with non-law enforcement employees throughout sweeps, although one evaluation confirmed a vital spike in homeless-related arrests and citations within the final 18 months throughout California.
“When you run it the precise method and connect individuals to the suitable helps and companies,” Dones mentioned, “you may get individuals on a path to stability and group reintegration, and that’s what we would like.”
Clearing an encampment utilizing this mannequin, Dones mentioned, normally takes six to eight weeks.
That course of is just not straightforward. Emergency conditions, reminiscent of an infectious illness outbreak, or rising public strain can immediate native officers to resolve to clear encampments extra shortly, and with out providing unhoused individuals a spot to go. That’s true even in cities with best-practice insurance policies, in line with San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan.
“We have now to measure and perceive the well being impacts of permitting encampments to develop and persist, in addition to the well being impacts of transferring individuals,” he mentioned. “We discover that the longer a given encampment persists, the extra possible we’re to have severe problems with public well being and public security.”
Peter Radu, who oversees Berkeley’s homeless response, says this work is disaster administration. “I hate to say it, however that oftentimes means selecting the least unhealthy amongst horrible choices.”
Radu described an encampment that cropped up in a preferred park in Berkeley final yr. His crew resisted calls to clear it instantly, as a substitute doing outreach and making an attempt to attach the unhoused residents to companies.
However because the encampment grew to round 20 individuals, so did neighbors’ frustrations — particularly after a excessive schooler was groped close to the park. Radu knew it could take weeks, if not months, to determine everybody’s wants and line up housing for all these within the encampment.
“We needed to make the unlucky choice,” Radu mentioned, “that we didn’t have that luxurious.”
Town gave of us within the encampment a couple of weeks’ discover and provided them short-term motel vouchers earlier than clearing the park this previous April.
“We had been doing proper by them, I feel, to supply them a brief respite from the streets,” Radu mentioned, “however we knew that was a Band-Assist. We knew full nicely that when these motel stays had been up, of us had been going to be again out on the streets. And so they had been.”
Radu and different native officers mentioned the most important barrier to transferring individuals to long-term housing is the dearth of accessible low-income models and locations for individuals with vital psychological well being and dependancy points.
“We all know extra housing is what’s going to unravel this drawback,” Radu mentioned. “That’s the root-cause intervention.”
Cities rely closely on federal grants to assist them construct extra housing for homeless individuals. However the Trump administration moved to change the principles for a few of that funding earlier this yr. It needs to require native governments and nonprofits to align with the administration’s ideology round denying assist to transgender individuals and undocumented immigrants, for instance. That’s a nonstarter for a lot of California cities. Advocacy teams sued, and a federal choose has quickly stopped the brand new guidelines from going into impact.
The federal authorities additionally introduced plans final week to lower billions of {dollars} that cities have traditionally used to get homeless individuals into everlasting housing. Consultants say that might push as many as 170,000 individuals nationwide again into homelessness.
Within the absence of extra everlasting housing, cities are spending hundreds of thousands to get individuals into short-term spots. In early 2025, Berkeley earmarked $10 million for a four-year lease on a motel that may home 26 previously homeless individuals and provide them medical and social companies.
Town of Los Angeles has spent greater than $320 million on Inside Protected, its encampment decision program, over the past three years. That has helped the town transfer 5,200 individuals inside. About one-quarter of these people have discovered everlasting housing, however greater than a 3rd are again on the streets, in line with the town.
The remaining are in interim housing, together with Jazmine Mapes.
A number of days after a sweep pushed Mapes to attempt to finish her life, representatives from Inside Protected provided her a spot in a motel close to Dodger Stadium. She moved into her personal personal room a couple of weeks later.
“That was my time of very a lot ‘discovering me,’” Mapes mentioned, “and beginning to be okay with Jazmine once more.”
Transferring inside introduced its personal challenges, together with flare-ups of hysteria and despair. However she’s been capable of keep on her medicines, in remedy, and off avenue medication significantly better than when she was residing exterior.
And she or he’s been capable of increase her toddler son, she mentioned, with out worry that somebody goes to return by with out warning and inform her to maneuver alongside.
This story was initially produced by Tradeoffs, a nonprofit newsroom reporting on well being care’s hardest decisions. Join their weekly publication to get their newest tales each Thursday morning. Tradeoffs reporting for this story was supported, partly, by the California Well being Care Basis and the Sozosei Basis.
