PITTSFIELD — Robert Reed is on all the lists.
He’s applied for a state rental voucher. He’s on the waitlist for every local subsidized apartment he can find. And now he’s waiting for a spot at the shelter again, after losing his bed there on a technicality a few weeks ago.
As he waits for his application to rise to the top of one of those long lists, Reed has started sleeping on the sidewalk outside Berkshire Community Action Council at night. He said he doesn’t know where else to go.
Robert Reed, 45, is on all the lists. He’s applied for a state rental voucher. He’s on the waitlist for every local subsidized apartment he can find. And now he’s waiting for a spot at the shelter again, after losing his bed there on a technicality a few weeks ago.
But sleeping there — or on any sidewalk, alley, park or other public place in the city — would be illegal under a new ordinance proposed by Mayor Peter Marchetti.
The ordinance, which the mayor introduced at City Council on Tuesday, would amend the city’s code to ban people from creating temporary shelter on public property, whether that be a tent in a local park, a bedroll in a doorway on North Street or a sleeping bag tucked under the eave of the library. The ordinance would also limit the number of days private landowners can invite people to shelter outside on their property.
If people do seek shelter in public spaces, their belongings could be removed and impounded, and they — and the people who help them — could face criminal and noncriminal penalties.
The mayor said the ordinance is an effort to solidify an existing rule that prevents people from building temporary shelter in parks, and expand it to other public spaces in the city. The intention, he said, is to safeguard public health and provide clean spaces by limiting “camping and the storage of personal property” in pubic areas.
“We know based on the improving weather that it’s something that we’re going to see more of,” Marchetti said. “Contrary to public opinion, we will treat all these folks humanely, and try to give them the best resources we can.”
Housing advocates, nonprofit leaders and those experiencing homelessness themselves said the ordinance would criminalize people who don’t have a place to live — exposing them to heightened policing, reinforcing structural racism and further entrenching them in poverty with fines they can’t pay.
The ordinance is in the early stages of consideration by the City Council. It has been referred to the Ordinance and Rules subcommittee, before which it will be reviewed by the Public Health Safety Committee, the Homeless Advisory Committee and the Mental Health and Substance Use Disorder Advisory Committee.
SAFETY FOR WHOM?
Pittsfield is not the first or only city to respond to its local housing crisis with a camping ordinance that would ban people from creating temporary shelter and sleeping in public spaces.
Last year, a small city in Oregon, seeking greater enforcement powers to grapple with record high rates of homelessness, brought a case to the Supreme Court.
In June, the Supreme Court released its decision on City of Grants Pass, Ore. v. Johnson. Voting along ideological lines, the justices overturned lower court rulings that deemed it cruel and unusual under the Eighth Amendment to punish people for sleeping outside if they had nowhere else to go. The National Alliance to End Homelessness described the court’s decision as “the most important case regarding homelessness in the past 40 years.”
Since the ruling, more than a hundred towns and cities have banned unhoused people from sleeping in public places, NPR reported. It’s become a guide for Pittsfield too — Marchetti said he referenced the ruling while crafting his ordinance with the city solicitor.
Beth Peters, 45, has experienced homelessness on and off throughout her adult life. She is currently without an apartment and spends her days and nights outside the library.
“When I look at this ordinance, unfortunately I see cruelty,” said Sean Manion, lead organizer of Berkshire Interfaith Organizing. “I would like to ask the mayor if he’s comfortable aligning himself with this particular Supreme Court on this particular question.”
Nonprofit leaders and organizers said they don’t deny that the city has a housing crisis — they want to see people exit homelessness into safe and long-term housing.
“We’re always looking for permanent solutions. We want people to be in permanent spaces,” said Kristin Coyne, who oversees properties for Hearthway. “We don’t want people to live in an encampment forever.”
But they disagree with Marchetti’s approach.
“Homelessness is a complex issue,” said Fernando Leon, an organizer with Berkshire Interfaith Organizing. “It requires comprehensive and compassionate solutions, not just one-sided ordinances that simply push people in crisis further into invisibility.”
Leon sees the camping ordinance and the median safety ordinance that Marchetti introduced in March as inextricably linked. They’ve left him with a question — who are public spaces for and whose public safety is of concern?
A panhandler holds a sign for passers-by on the median at the intersection of East and First streets in Pittsfield. In March, Mayor Peter Marchetti introduced a median safety ordinance that ultimately failed to pass. Some housing advocates see the encampment ordinance as a similar attempt.
“It’s a mindset,” Leon said. “Our public lands belong to all of us. If we fence out those in crisis, we betray our moral duty and we break the trust that brings community together, that brings congregations together.”
SELECTIVE ENFORCEMENT
One of the primary concerns for organizers and nonprofit leaders with this proposed ordinance is the question of enforcement.
The “camping” ordinance says that any person violating the ordinance would be subject to the temporary seizure of personal property, and “any person causing, permitting, abiding, abetting or concealing a violation of this chapter shall be subject to criminal and noncriminal penalties.”
It also reserves the right for the city to “exercise its discretion to enforce this Section as resources permit.”
Organizers have three key issues with this — enforcement would be selective, it would expand the policing of unhoused people and it would have a disparate impact on already marginalized communities, they said.
In Pittsfield and across the country, homelessness — and all the issues that can lead someone there — don’t affect people equally. Those who are already marginalized because of their race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, disability or other identities are more likely to experience homelessness.
The National Alliance to End Homelessness reported that in 2020, Black people made up 13 percent of the nation’s general population, but more than 40 percent of the homeless population. Indigenous people, people who identify as mixed race, and LGBTQ+ people also experience homelessness at disproportionate rates, and those disparities are not improving over time.
Books adorn a tree near the remnants of an encampment near a Pittsfield city park where homeless residents often stay. “Currently, when we see an encampment in the city parks, they are approached by some member of the team,” Mayor Peter Marchetti said.
This holds true in Pittsfield. According to data from the Three County Continuum of Care, of the 187 people who were unhoused on a single night in January, 51 percent identified as Black, African American or African. Fifty-five percent were people of color.
In comparison, Black and African Americans were 7 percent of the city’s population at the time of the 2020 census. People of color as a whole made up about 29 percent.
“[The ordinance’s] implementation would almost definitely have a racist impact. That’s not an accusation against the mayor or any city councilors or any personality,” Manion said. “I would call this an example of structural racism where, regardless of the intent, the systems, the policies, the structures we put in place reproduce dynamics of white supremacy.”
Organizers and nonprofit leaders said they are worried that enforcement of the ordinance would fall on the police, effectively increasing policing of people who appear to be poor or unhoused.
“When we talk about the capacity of the Pittsfield Police Department in handling people in a crisis, brown people in a crisis, we have seen that they are not effective in doing so,” Leon said. “We’ve seen that the type of crisis interventions they use are based on force, and that usually escalates the situation until someone might end up [being] killed.”
Marchetti said under the ordinance, city departments would expand and continue the “multifaceted approach” already in place for monitoring the parks.
“Currently, when we see an encampment in the city parks, they are approached by some member of the team,” Marchetti said. “We provide them with a … placard that says they can’t stay here and they’re given a period of time of how long they can stay there, along with all the resources that are available for them.”
The remnants of an encampment are left in a city park in Pittsfield on Wednesday. Mayor Peter Marchetti said Pittsfield is building to meet the growing housing crisis, including investing millions in a broad range of affordable housing projects.
The enforcement of the ordinance also stands to further entrench unhoused people in poverty with fines they can’t pay and increase the number of unhoused people cycling through the local jail. Kamaar Taliaferro, chair of the political action committee for the Berkshire County chapter of the NAACP, said that would add yet another barrier in people’s journey to accessing stable housing since employers and landlords can and do deny people employment and housing if they have a criminal record.
“The Berkshire County House of Corrections is not a homeless shelter,” Taliaferro said. “If we begin to think that we can utilize the criminal justice system, to address what are ultimately ways that we fall short in upholding the human covenant between us, we aren’t solving anything.”
‘WHERE WOULD I GO?’
It’s the question on everyone’s minds: If the ordinance were to move forward and people could no longer sleep on public property, where else would they go?
Already, people face countless barriers to accessing affordable and stable housing. Waitlists for subsidized apartments — which are often the only housing people living on low and fixed incomes can afford — number in the hundreds, leaving people to wait months if not years for a unit.
In the intervening time, people have few options — double up with a family member, sleep on a friend’s couch, hope there’s an open bed at the local shelter. When those options fail, people seek other places to rest. A park bench. A shielded stretch of sidewalk. A clearing in the woods.
Jason Jones is one of them. Ten years ago, Jones’ husband was diagnosed with cancer and given two years to live. Jones became his full-time caregiver — not for two years, but 10 — and when his husband died, Jones could no longer afford to keep their apartment.
In two bags, Jason Jones carries deodorant, mouthwash, blankets, essential documents and his husband’s death certificate. He keeps his clothes at a friend’s apartment.
For a while, Jones said he couch surfed at friends’ homes. When he felt he’d outstayed his welcome, he started finding other places to spend the night.
“Sometimes I’m too tired to even walk to the meal sites,” said Jones, who has recently been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. “I’m at the point where it’s like, why do I keep going? This is no way to live.”
Ten years ago, Jason Jones’ husband was diagnosed with cancer and given two years to live. Jones became his fulltime caregiver — not for two years, but 10 — and when his husband died, Jones could no longer afford to keep their apartment.
The number of people experiencing homelessness in Pittsfield on a single night in January rose to 187 this year, up 39 percent from a year earlier, according to data from the Three County Continuum of Care. And shelter workers said that’s likely an undercount.
While the number of unhoused people is growing, the number of beds and apartments available is not keeping pace. The shelter is regularly at capacity and beds fill within the day they open, said Erin Forbush, who directs shelter and housing at ServiceNet.
“There was a time when the bulk of the work we were doing was getting people onto public housing waitlists, Section 8 waitlists and any kind of vouchers we could come up with,” Forbush said. “More than not, now individuals are coming in already on the lists.”
Marchetti said Pittsfield is building to meet the crisis. The city has invested millions in a broad range of affordable housing projects — including a housing resource center and apartments for people who have been experiencing homelessness — and is committed to continuing to be a partner on such projects, he said.
But Coyne said the 44 permanent supportive housing units Hearthway is bringing online in the next six months are not enough.
“It’s not going to be enough to shelter and provide permanent housing for every person that’s in an encampment in Pittsfield or lives on the streets or is without shelter in this moment,” she said.
Where else would people go? Marchetti said he doesn’t have that answer, and that it’s one he would ask back to local housing and homelessness agencies.
“We do not [have a plan],” he said. “One of the questions that I asked the other day and we’ll continue to explore — we had a warming center open all winter. Is it feasible to do a year-round warming center?”
In 2020, a small compound of tents was set up in Springside Park in Pittsfield. For local housing advocates, the city’s mission to support vulnerable residents is hard to reconcile with the proposed encampment ban ordinance.
For local organizers, the city’s mission to support vulnerable residents is hard to reconcile with the proposed ordinance.
“On the one hand, there are these amazing projects that show there’s an investment in dealing with this crisis,” Manion said. “On the other hand, these ordinances symbolize a profound lack of compassion.”
As people who work with these issues daily, community organizers and nonprofit leaders know better than most how difficult the housing crisis is to solve. Their question for the mayor — why are you trying to solve it on your own?
“Why is he choosing to unilaterally make decisions?” Leon said. “Why doesn’t he use advisory councils? Why doesn’t he use the expertise of members in the community and nonprofits that have been working on this for years?”