The right to infrastructure: a struggle for sanitation in Fresno, California homeless encampments

ABSTRACT

In 2013, Fresno, California was home to more than 5,000 homeless people, many of whom took refuge in sprawling downtown encampments. Citing unsanitary conditions, Fresno officials implemented a policy of bulldozing the encampments while providing housing vouchers to a small number of residents. Yet homeless Fresnans by and large demanded the provision of sanitation in the encampments as an alternative to eviction. In doing so, they invoked their right to urban infrastructure. Drawing from literature on informal housing in the Global South, this paper argues that individual housing rights present a limited framework through which to understand homeless people’s right to the city, and that a truly radical right to the city should reflect the demand for sanitation infrastructure emerging from the streets.

KEYWORDS:

• Homelessness
• encampments
• right to the city
• infrastructure
• sanitation
• informal housing

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. Homeless research participants are identified by pseudonyms to protect their identity.

2. As an odd corollary, the mayor insisted on hiring a private security force to monitor the toilets 24 h a day, costing the City $13,000 per month (Rhodes, 2007c).