Oped: Mayor Smiley's War on the Poor
"... because of Mayor Smiley's actions, people will die."
It is believed by outreach workers that by the time any members of the Providence Police Department arrived at the two unhoused encampments cruelly evicted by Providence Mayor Brett Smiley, the encampments were empty. All that remained was the trash that Mayor Smiley refused to provide receptacles for, and whatever possessions those being evicted were unable to carry out of the encampments.
Some people were able to move their tents, temporarily, onto private property, where presumably the Providence Police would need a warrant to enter. Because television news crews from WJAR Channel 10 and WLVI Channel 12 refused to respect the privacy of those setting up in the new encampment, the private landowner put up picket fencing to shield the campers from the cameras. Both news teams were happy to broadcast the location of the temporary encampment to their viewers. In the case of WJAR Channel 10, this is especially troubling since morning news host Gene Valicenti routinely uses his platform to harass and hound unhoused people and never passes up a chance to push Mayor Smiley into taking more aggressive action against the unhoused.
The site of the new encampment is temporary - providing time for advocates to place people into more permanent shelters. It can hold nowhere near the number of people being evicted. You may remember Michael (not his real name) from my previous reporting on this eviction. [See: Providence Mayor Brett Smiley is evicting up to 85 people experiencing homelessness from three encampments] Michael told me on Tuesday that the new, smaller encampment is crowded and that no new campers would be allowed to join them. The plan, said Michael, was for outreach workers and advocates to place them into better situations as shelter beds and supportive housing becomes available.
The fact that the new encampment was on private property did not prevent the Providence Police from harassing the recently uprooted campers early Tuesday morning. More than one camper reported to me that the police told them that camping, even on private property, is illegal and that they were still under threat of eviction. Now that the encampment is on private property, will the Smiley Administration make sure that the police secure warrants before rousting people in the middle of the night and running their IDs? Though Rhode Island’s Homeless bill of Rights ensures unhoused people of their 4th Amendment rights, Mayor Smiley has not hesitated to defend the actions of police officers who violate the state statute, even going so far as to lie to the press about it. [See: Oped: On Friday morning Providence Mayor Brett Smiley looked me in the eye and lied...; Still no answers from Smiley Administration on police officers violating unhoused people's rights; and, “We don't need a warrant. You live in a tent.”]
When I asked the Mayor’s communications person, Josh Estrella, about this, he dodged the question. “You are correct that camping on public property is not legal. If a private property owner requests that police assist removing individuals from their private property who are not allowed to be there, for any reason, the Providence Police Department will provide that notice and assist the private property owner upon their request,” wrote Estrella.
As for the people evicted, they used to look out for each other, administering Narcan if someone overdosed, or protecting each other from outsiders who may wish them harm. There is safety in numbers, and as that safety evaporates, negative outcomes increase.
“...the bad news is that we have our folks scattered to the far ends of the city,” said an outreach worker to me. “We have people everywhere now.”
People are scattered in smaller encampments across the city. They no longer have the community to help them or a way to look out for each other. They have been divided and disempowered - easier to target and harass.
I asked Mayor Smiley if the people living in the encampments were criminals. [See: Providence Mayor Smiley takes questions on unhoused encampment evictions]
“I don't think so,” said Mayor Smiley. “I mean, as we talked about earlier, I haven't met the people living in these encampments, but they're not criminals for being homeless.”
Mayor Smiley is a smart man, and he’s hired smart people to advise him. So it would be surprising to me if he did not know that evicting encampments “may yield substantial increases in morbidity and mortality over a 10-year period,” as noted in a paper published at JAMA. “Involuntary displacement is estimated to worsen overdose and hospitalizations, decrease initiations of medications for opioid use disorder, and contribute to deaths among people experiencing homelessness who inject drugs.” This is one of at least four studies I have heard about that reached similar conclusions.
If unhoused people are coded as illegal no matter where they try to exist, then allowing the police and the state to harass them and chase them around becomes a form of persecution. Add to that enacting polices that are known to increase morbity and mortality, and the intention borders on genocidal.
Mayor Smiley is not pursuing policies to bring people out of poverty and into safe and clean homes. He is not fighting a war on poverty. He is weaponizing public resources and our tax dollars to enact a war on poor people, and because of Mayor Smiley’s actions, people will die.
Steve mentions this JAMA paper: Population-Level Health Effects of Involuntary Displacement of People Experiencing Unsheltered Homelessness Who Inject Drugs in US Cities.
That the policies implemented by Mayor Smiley are killer policies is pretty self-evident, but backing up statements by real research is the gold standard. Indeed, it turns out that even the stress resulting with the threat of homelessness is a killer, as yet another JAMA publication shows when straightforwardly generalized https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/article-abstract/2815200
Thank You Steve for doing the reporting that needs to be done. The ruling elites have done an excellent job dividing and ruling those (with less means) and all of us should recognize that we have more in common, than differences. The average American is just 7 missed paychecks, or a single medical emergency away from homelessness. Again, that's all that divides us from our brothers and sisters on the streets who have been "othered" by the lame-stream media with fawning covering of some very viscous politicians. Reagan gutted the subsidized housing programs decades ago, Clinton the welfare system and we are living in the very predictable results. We are again in the 1930's depression-style police raids on homeless camps that led to the new-deal and all the good that came from it. Let's not let up the pressure to have a truly better world to live in free from the crass politics of blaming victims of a system set-up to fail the most vulnerable. Tax the uber wealthy for God's sake.