Mon, 2006-11-13 19:14 — hfuk_soldier
‘Replicating Dignity” sees ink in issue 15 of the Pavement, the free magazine for London’s homeless. Here’s the text of the article:
Dignity Village, the former tent city in Portland, Oregon, is the greatest accomplishment of the American poor since Rosa Parks refused to get off the bus. It is the physical embodiment of a dream and hard work on the part of the most oppressed people in this society. Imagine a homeless community coming together with a challenge to a draconian piece of legislation, a camping ban, and living in tents on public land! Tents were a giant step up from the doorways they had been living in.
Dignity’s ‘original soldiers” refused to disband and return to the doorways despite being force-marched by the police from site to site. They were swept five times! Their tactic of the shopping cart parade as they circled Jericho, waiting for cracks to appear in the City’s walls, captured the public imagination.
The Homeless Front’s tenacity and persistence eventually paid off. Dignity Village won legal sanction on its sixth site in 2004 when it was officially designated a campground under an extant but little known state statute.
Dignity Village was birthed in the fire of direct action. When Portland’s camping ban was challenged on two constitutional grounds in September 2000, its homeless community immediately began organising its Out of the Doorways campaign. History had thrown down a gauntlet and Portland’s homeless admirably rose to the challenge and picked that gauntlet up.
The original Out of the Doorways campaign was as popular as it was inclusive. Right away it attracted media attention and not only from the street newspaper that was its initial sponsor. It also pulled aboard a great deal of support in the wider community. Its supporters included everyone from artists to architects to attorneys, from poets to radio personalities to presidents of family foundations, from students to religious leaders from churches and the local mosque to everyday homeless people. Much of Dignity’s vision sprang from those early, tumultuous meetings.
When the Homeless Front’s first eight soldiers occupied their first piece of public ground in December 2000, they were armed with the vision of the green, sustainable, urban village they wanted to create. They fought hard for the sanction they finally won and their dwellings evolved from the tents they began with into the eco-friendly structures and community spaces villagers enjoy today. Dignity’s most recent proposal to the City of Portland says, ‘Dignity Village is the only place-based community in this town that practices grass roots democracy with an ecological vision. It is the only walkable community not invaded by cars, and it is the most cost efficient self-help model for transcending homelessness in the nation.”
The Dignity model has numerous advantages over more traditional shelter facilities. Most people are homeless for a period of less than a year. Communities like Dignity are flexible and expandable and are therefore able to accommodate fluctuations in demand. Compared to conventional facilities, tent cities are inexpensive to build and operate. They also minimise impact on the land they occupy and are easily transported and moved when necessary. When combined with more permanent facilities such as showers, toilets, cooking and washing facilities, community spaces, common areas, and offices, communities like Dignity are designed to meet the needs of the temporarily displaced.
It should be pointed out that the term ‘tent cities” is a bit of a misnomer and is not meant to imply that housing structures are limited to only nylon and metal pole construction. Dignity Village, for example, currently has what is probably the largest assembled collection of eco-friendly dwellings using cob and straw bale constructive techniques in the Pacific Northwest.
The Dignity model is one that cries out for replication and adaptation to the current British political, legal and social geography. Too many people in London are relegated to living in doorways and under bridges for a number of reasons. Many homeless people including couples and A8 workers are underserved in the current configuration of social services. And there is a built-in disincentive to seeking and finding steady employment in many of the hostels that makes them a less-than-desirable option for those actively seeking work.
Right now and to this end London’s newly-formed Homeless Front UK in its current Out of the Doorways campaign is holding meetings and looking at promising sites on which to set up our first tent city. We have to help us in our endeavour some funding and a Tent Cities Toolkit jointly developed by Dignity Village and media partners Kwamba Productions. We urge all homeless people and activists interested in getting a sanctioned campsite to ring us at (0) 7944 056 135 or contact us through http://squat.net/homelessfront/.
