“It makes a difference when you have a group of people around you who are constantly just listening to you and supporting you, and a lot of homeless people don't have that,” says Matt Mercer, a Camp Hope resident. He is shown here with his tarp-covered tent. Photo Credit - Greg Sorber/Journal
LAS CRUCES – In the typically isolated life of homeless people on the street, there is safety in numbers, and sometimes much more.
Since November, with the consent of city government, about three dozen homeless men and women have been living in a largely self-governed tent village called Camp Hope on Las Cruces municipal property.
The circle of tents, many with an extra tarp on top and some sitting on wooden pallets, is on a quarter-acre municipal lot next to a cluster of social service agencies that provide services to homeless people and others in need.
The homeless residents have formed a leadership council, established rules and registration procedures and banned alcohol and drug consumption. They post one of their own each night to keep watch over the camp.
The tent city, which is the only one of its kind in the state, according to the New Mexico Coalition to End Homelessness, is a temporary response to the winter needs of the homeless. It is not affiliated with the Occupy movement’s tent villages that have sprung up over the last three months in cities nationwide, drawing homeless people, in some cases.
Camp Hope is set to disband by the end of March, and occupancy is capped at 50 – as city officials look for a long-term solution, a way to provide more overnight beds in a more managed setting.
But several Camp Hope residents said working with city officials to gain approval and working with each other to manage the village in a way that builds trust with local government has renewed their sense of purpose and dignity.
“Everyone’s volunteering,” said James Von Behren, 49, who has been homeless on and off for 16 years and is one of the camp leaders. “It gives them the feeling of being involved, of accomplishing something, a personal basis for being there. They have a sense of self-worth.”
Another camp leader is Matt Mercer, a 38-year-old originally from central Pennsylvania who has had more than half a dozen stints living on the streets since he was 18.
“For a lot of people, it’s just healing and regenerating to be a part of a community of people who drink coffee with each other every morning, even if it’s in the cold,” Mercer said. “It makes a difference when you have a group of people around you who are constantly just listening to you and supporting you, and a lot of homeless people don’t have that. They become isolated or alienated.”
The residents of Camp Hope are homeless for various reasons. Von Behren, who said he is bipolar and requires a wheelchair to get around, said he cannot afford most rental prices with his disability payments, but he also said he prefers “just being free.” Mercer said he could find work, but he is using his time on the street and volunteer work to heal from a traumatic attack he experienced as a young man. Other residents of Camp Hope include military veterans, people who have dealt with drug abuse or alcoholism, and some who cope with some type of mental illness.
The path to the city’s approval of the encampment started in the fall, as officials at the Community of Hope, a drop-in social service agency, bumped up against their own policy of not permitting homeless people to remain on the grounds outside after 6 p.m. Signs were posted saying no overnight camping would be permitted after Oct. 15, although the deadline was pushed back to the end of October.
Pamela Angell, former director of the Community of Hope, said it became harder to kick people off the campus as temperatures fell. Lows in Las Cruces averaged 28 degrees for most of December, and the city received more than 2 inches of snow on two different days, with freezing rain on another.
At the Community of Hope, homeless people can take showers, launder their clothes, access the Internet, and get help from social workers to receive Social Security benefits.
At other agencies on the same campus, they can get lunch each weekday at the El Caldito soup kitchen or receive treatment at a medical clinic.
Angell recently told the City Council that, since the agencies provide services to the homeless during the day, she felt a sense of responsibility to “keep them safe and secure at night.”
Temporary overnight shelter is provided across the street at the Las Cruces Gospel Rescue Mission, but some homeless people chafe at the Christian message or have exceeded the permitted time to stay.
While the Community of Hope contemplated enforcing the ban on overnight camping, it invited a local man, Randy Harris, to lead weekly meetings with the homeless about their needs and wants. Harris also hosts informal discussion groups called “Great Conversations” about a range of topics.
“What was on the list was ‘We want to be treated like people,’ ‘We want a little respect,’ ‘We want a little place to call our own,’ ” said Bob Hearn, a member of the El Caldito board who regularly attends the Wednesday morning meetings.
“When we started all this, like the first meeting, a bunch of people shuffled into the room, looking down, wouldn’t talk, a couple of people said a few things, a couple got angry, and that was it,” Hearn said. “And over time, you can just see people rising up in their ability to function, they will look you in the eye and talk to you.” In early November, City Council members gave their support to the temporary camp, after Mercer and Von Behren asked for their help on behalf of the homeless.
During the council meeting, Mercer cited a 2010 report by the National Coalition for the Homeless on 11 West Coast tent cities. The camps are approved under various arrangements with local governments and are usually managed in ways that stress accountability of their homeless residents.
Von Behren told councilors that permitting homeless people on a site next to the agencies that serve them would speed up efforts to connect clients with long-term housing, government benefits and relatives. “There’s nothing stable,” Von Behren told councilors. “There’s nothing for us to even try to build on.”
Local media reports about the tent village have prompted the wider community to reach out. Four-fifths of the tents in the village were donated by local residents.
A man drove up one day and dropped off 20 tarps that now provide an extra layer of protection from rain and snow. Hearn picked up the phone and got businesses to donate dozens of wooden pallets and 50 tons of gravel, which camp residents spread around the lot themselves with shovels.
A steel container has been filled with donated blankets, sleeping bags, coats and food. A local man donated an aging RV to use as a makeshift office and a place to make coffee in the morning. Another woman recently began leading yoga classes at the Community of Hope. A Bible-study group volunteered to provide breakfast on weekends. The Community of Hope placed portable toilets on the site.
“The more we create a solid presence that people are able to relate to and that is accessible to them, the more we’ll have people stepping forward to help,” Mercer said.
— This article appeared on page A1 of the Albuquerque Journal
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