From encampments to hotspots: the changing policing of homelessness in New York City

Abstract

This article examines a shift in language and enforcement around homeless dwellings in New York City that occurred in 2015. Amidst a rising tide of anti-homeless sentiment, city officials and police department administrators switched from calling such dwellings ‘encampments’ to ‘homeless hotspots’, which were defined as anywhere with two or more homeless people in public space. Using data from city policy memos, interviews with homeless people, ethnographic fieldwork with a homeless-led organization, and data from the city’s 311 user-driven complaint system, this article argues that in practice, the shift to hotspots demonstrates the relational geography of homelessness. Selective enforcement of the visible ‘homeless hotspot’ took place in recently-gentrified neighbourhoods, suggesting that the idea of a homeless hotspot itself and the financialized home are co-produced and co-dependent, created through one another. This relational geography, in turn, sheds light on the pervasiveness of anti-homelessness, force that changes with political winds but retains its power in producing borders and boundaries of urban space.

Keywords::

• Homelessness;
• policing;
• relational geographies;
• gentrification;
• visibility

Acknowledgements

Many thanks to Picture the Homeless, and especially Nikita Price, for sharing their powerful work with me for many years. I am also grateful to the participants in the 2018 Law and Society Association Junior Scholars’ Workshop, who provided crucial feedback, and to the anonymous reviewers for their insightful thoughts.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 311 data, which is open-source and available publicly through NYC Open Data, sorts all complaints received into categories based on their content. 311 then dispatches different city agencies based on their determination of the correct response. For this study, 311 complaints were determined to be ‘homeless related’ if they met any one of the following three criteria: They were filed under the complaint category ‘homeless encampment’, the responding agency was noted as the Department of Homeless Services (DHS), or the description accompanying the complaint mentioned ‘homeless’ in its text.

Additional information

Funding

This study was supported by the Dissertation Proposal Development Fellowship Program of the Social Science Research Council (SSRC).

Notes on contributors

Eric Goldfischer

Eric Goldfischer is a PhD Candidate in the Department of Geography, Environment and Society at the University of Minnesota. His research examines the relationship between green urban development and homelessness.