Phoenix Is Clearing Its Largest Homeless Encampment. The ACLU Says It’s Breaking the Law.
As Phoenix begins to displace around 700 people from an encampment near downtown, the ACLU of Arizona is asking a judge to find the city in contempt of a court order prohibiting it from violating the rights of the unhoused.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Arizona filed a motion this week asking a judge to halt the destruction of a homeless encampment in Phoenix and find the city in contempt of a court order that protects the constitutional rights of unhoused people.
In December, a federal judge issued a court order stating that the city cannot seize or destroy unhoused people’s property without notice and cannot criminalize unhoused people for camping or sleeping outside when there is no shelter available for them.
The city began clearing an encampment known as The Zone on May 10. The Zone is one of the largest homeless encampments in the country and is home to nearly 700 people. The camp spans several city blocks near downtown Phoenix and is located near service providers that offer unhoused people food and assistance, even if there is no shelter available for them.
The sweeps are expected to continue over the next several weeks. But the ACLU of Arizona says the operations are unconstitutional and must be halted. During the May 10 sweep, the city seized and destroyed people’s property, failed to store belongings properly, and threatened people with citations or arrest without first ensuring that there was appropriate shelter available, according to the ACLU filing.
“The property I saw collected and destroyed included tents, bedding, blankets, clothes, tarps, storage containers, a walker, mattresses, water coolers, and a bike,” stated Elizabeth Venable, co-founder and lead organizer at the Fund for Empowerment, in a sworn declaration. “I saw the City use excavators and dump trucks to load up and destroy property… As the excavators scooped up property, many of the items were crushed.”
In a statement, a spokesperson for the city of Phoenix said the city “vehemently disagrees” with the ACLU’s description of what took place during the May 10 sweep. The spokesperson claimed that no one’s property was destroyed without their permission, but the city’s seven-paragraph statement did not address the ACLU’s accounts of people being threatened with arrest and citation during the sweep.
The U.S. Department of Justice is currently investigating the Phoenix Police Department for a variety of controversial practices, including allegations that officers have unlawfully seized or destroyed unhoused people’s belongings.
In an email to The Appeal, Kristin Couturier, a spokesperson for the city of Phoenix, wrote that “City staff and partners engaged 60 people in the area” during the recent sweep and “each one of them cooperated with the request to move their belongings.” She added that “47 people were transported to indoor shelters or treatment programs, a nearly 80% success rate in placing people into an indoor space.”
Sworn declarations from five people who witnessed the sweep paint a different picture. Witnesses stated that city workers threatened people with arrest, told unhoused people to get rid of any belongings that did not fit into two garbage bins, and suggested people go to shelters that do not accommodate people with disabilities or pets. One witness said a woman was forced to give up her dog in order to obtain shelter.
Statements like these point to a broader failure of the shelter system to facilitate longer-term housing in cities across the U.S. In Los Angeles, for example, a city councilmember claimed in 2021 that a violent raid on a homeless encampment was “the single largest housing event in the history of the city,” touting reports that 168 of the camp’s residents had been placed in indoor shelter arrangements. But a study less than a year after the operation found that only 13 of those people remained housed.
The city of Phoenix is set to conduct a second sweep on May 24. A different court order stemming from a separate lawsuit—filed on behalf of business owners near the Zone—states that the city must clear the encampment by July 10.
The number of people experiencing homelessness in Phoenix has ballooned since the COVID-19 pandemic. More than 9,600 people are experiencing homelessness in Maricopa County today, according to data collected by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, up from about 6,600 people in 2019.
As the city plans further actions to displace people from the Zone, many of the encampment’s nearly 700 residents have nowhere else to go. According to the Phoenix New Times, the city’s alternative-weekly newspaper, four of Phoenix’s largest shelters are at 97 percent capacity, with only 34 beds available between them.
“It’s so degrading to watch the City throw away your belongings and know you have no control,” said Ronnie Massingille, who is unhoused and was subjected to previous encampment sweeps, in a declaration. “I wanted to fight and scream. The City was taking all that I had, and I had nothing already.”