“Excuse me, where’s the tent city?”
The man with matted dreadlocks and a weathered face from the sun squinted at me. He wore a white tee shirt grey with wear and slung a tattered jean jacket over his shoulder, hot from the afternoon sun. “Why would you want to go there?”
Why indeed. Like many, I followed the flood of news coverage of the tent cities supposedly popping up across the country, according to the New York Times, as the recession devastated the hardworking, middle class home owners of this country. Leaving in its wake, jobless professionals evicted or foreclosed on their homes. My curiosity piqued by Oprah and other stories , I headed to Sacramento to see the tent city with my own eyes.
I spent the two-hour drive with my partner discussing our ambivalence about being voyeurs of other peoples’ misery. We strategized about how to approach residents respectfully. Nothing could prepare us for the landscape that greeted us: Miles of wasteland bisected by train tracks, concrete levee walls, and a tangle of electrical power grids alongside the American River. The skyline of downtown Sacramento was barely visible in the distant horizon. The lack of trees magnified the afternoon heat and the sun beat down on the assorted tents and tarps arranged in clusters, some around campfires.
Marcela Grice, 38, a Black woman was reading a novel when I walked up to her. She wore thick glasses that enlarged her eyes and she spoke softly. She sat on a blanket near her tent, which was barely large enough to fit a dog let alone a human. She and her husband Andy, 45, had just got off the bus from South Carolina four days ago. Marcela worked at an auto parts factory down south, but was laid off last summer. The Grices were drawn to Sacramento because they heard there were jobs available.
Upon arriving here, they learned that employment was just as scarce in Sacramento and were now homeless as well as jobless. They arrived at the tent city this morning because they were repelled by the nastiness of the downtown residents. “We were pushed out by the police over there,” explained Andy, “They didn’t like us because we were an eyesore.”
The Applied Research Center has been working on a research report, Race and Recession: How racial injustice rigged the economy and how to change the rules, on the impact of the recession on communities of color, to be released May 18. We’ve been traveling across the country, seeing how the economic downturn has been affecting people of color. We found similar threads in peoples’ stories: inability to get a job because of discrimination or background checks, exploitation and non-sustainable wages when employed, loss of homes due to foreclosure or eviction from homes owned now by banks, and the lack of a public safety net to catch people of color hit by these desperate times.
As much as our findings are dismal, we also highlight policy solutions and practices that can reverse some of the disproportionate burden people of color are bearing in this economic downturn. How can we ensure that good jobs paying a livable wage are available to people of color? Can we eliminate the barriers to employment that keep people of color in low wage, precarious occupations? And, can we preserve home ownership for communities of color, sometimes the only vestige of wealth generations of families have access to?
A freight train announced its impending arrival by blasting its horn, loudly, while still miles away. I surveyed the landscape to catch sight of the train. I saw a camera crew wade through an area with tents on the opposite side of the tracks. Far off near the power lines, a photographer with an expensive camera slung around his neck interviewed two residents.
The media circus was in town and the main attraction was the homeless. Reporters had decided that the sign of our depressed times were contemporary equivalents of Hoovervilles and shanty towns, now filled with Joe Plumbers and Soccer Moms, foreclosed on their McMansions, and occupying tents. Instead, the residents I talked had been homeless even before this present recession struck. Rose Aguilar wrote an excellent analysis of this for Alternet. More than half of the residents in my vicinity on the day of my visit were people of color. A survey conducted by a local group, Ending Chronic Homeless Initiative, of 29 residents last month found that more than half have been homeless for more than one year. Under 20-percent have been without a home for less than one year.
Many suffered from challenges that typically leave people on the outskirts of social and economic wellbeing. 64% are disabled and 43% suffer from emotional problems. About 17% were interested in attending drug and alcohol recovery housing. 14% were veterans. Informally, out of the six residents I spoke with, half admitted that they were on parole or had some record.
Jay, 26, was a baby-faced Black youth from Oakland. He has lived in Sacramento since 2002. He wore a large, oversized hooded sweatshirt and his braided hair reached his shoulders. He looked younger than 26, more like 17 or 18. His voice was soft and he cast his eyes to the ground when he spoke to me.
Jay was on parole, he ran out of money and had no where else to go. He heard about the encampment from people while walking around the city. He was jobless, he is looking for a job in construction or anything work that’s available. “Sometimes it feels like having a criminal record is a disadvantage. They should ban the box here, like in San Francisco. Your record has nothing to do with a job. Unless, you’re a bank robber working in a bank.” He smiled and dimpled at his own joke.
One of ARC’s findings in our Race and Recession report is that background checks on prospective or current employees effectively prevents Black and brown people from being employed. Black and Latinos are disproportionately represented among our nation’s incarcerated population, particularly men. Employers use the existence of criminal records as an excuse to screen out black and brown men.
Jay’s girlfriend Cora, a young Latina and Black woman, maintained that she lived in a house in Elk Grove as she stood wearing pajamas and socks in the middle of a circle of tents. She was also jobless. “It’s hard to get jobs now as a person of color because people are racist.” She submitted four applications to TJ Maxx, but didn’t get called back. A white manager told her that they weren’t hiring although an employee said that they were.
Returning home, I followed the news of the city shut down the tent city and forced the residents to relocate, to remove the “eyesore” so close to the state capital. 
Some were moved to a shelter at the state fairgrounds, located at the periphery of the city. The residents of the budding community scattered, some going to the fairgrounds, others to overflow shelters, and still some stay on, refusing to be moved.
Where else can people go? “Sacramento has so many foreclosures,” Marcela said. “Why not let people live there?”
Cortland Bell, 39, a supervisor of the kitchen at the downtown Radisson Hotel, came up and introduced himself to me when I talked to the residents. A reedy Black man with long limbs and a slim stature, Cortland has lived in Sacramento for over 20 years but hails originally from Los Angeles. He was dressed in business casual, khaki pants and a button down shirt, attire appropriate for a working professional on a weekend.
“I’m walking through here because I know I could be here,” Cortland shared. He swept his arm to encompass all the tents in sight, “History and racism caused this. The U.S. is just as racist as it’s ever been.”
“Everyone in the U.S. is one paycheck away from being homeless,” said Fred Williams, 50, a black man originally from Youngstown, Ohio. “When they stop the war, the economy will go back up. Then, and only then. Until then, we’re stuck.”
Tent City
“Excuse me, where’s the tent city?”
The man with matted dreadlocks and a weathered face from the sun squinted at me. He wore a white tee shirt grey with wear and slung a tattered jean jacket over his shoulder, hot from the afternoon sun. “Why would you want to go there?”
Why indeed. Like many, I followed the flood of news coverage of the tent cities supposedly popping up across the country, according to the New York Times, as the recession devastated the hardworking, middle class home owners of this country. Leaving in its wake, jobless professionals evicted or foreclosed on their homes. My curiosity piqued by Oprah and other stories , I headed to Sacramento to see the tent city with my own eyes.
I spent the two-hour drive with my partner discussing our ambivalence about being voyeurs of other peoples’ misery. We strategized about how to approach residents respectfully. Nothing could prepare us for the landscape that greeted us: Miles of wasteland bisected by train tracks, concrete levee walls, and a tangle of electrical power grids alongside the American River. The skyline of downtown Sacramento was barely visible in the distant horizon. The lack of trees magnified the afternoon heat and the sun beat down on the assorted tents and tarps arranged in clusters, some around campfires.
Marcela Grice, 38, a Black woman was reading a novel when I walked up to her. She wore thick glasses that enlarged her eyes and she spoke softly. She sat on a blanket near her tent, which was barely large enough to fit a dog let alone a human. She and her husband Andy, 45, had just got off the bus from South Carolina four days ago. Marcela worked at an auto parts factory down south, but was laid off last summer. The Grices were drawn to Sacramento because they heard there were jobs available.
Upon arriving here, they learned that employment was just as scarce in Sacramento and were now homeless as well as jobless. They arrived at the tent city this morning because they were repelled by the nastiness of the downtown residents. “We were pushed out by the police over there,” explained Andy, “They didn’t like us because we were an eyesore.”
The Applied Research Center has been working on a research report, Race and Recession: How racial injustice rigged the economy and how to change the rules, on the impact of the recession on communities of color, to be released May 18. We’ve been traveling across the country, seeing how the economic downturn has been affecting people of color. We found similar threads in peoples’ stories: inability to get a job because of discrimination or background checks, exploitation and non-sustainable wages when employed, loss of homes due to foreclosure or eviction from homes owned now by banks, and the lack of a public safety net to catch people of color hit by these desperate times.
As much as our findings are dismal, we also highlight policy solutions and practices that can reverse some of the disproportionate burden people of color are bearing in this economic downturn. How can we ensure that good jobs paying a livable wage are available to people of color? Can we eliminate the barriers to employment that keep people of color in low wage, precarious occupations? And, can we preserve home ownership for communities of color, sometimes the only vestige of wealth generations of families have access to?
A freight train announced its impending arrival by blasting its horn, loudly, while still miles away. I surveyed the landscape to catch sight of the train. I saw a camera crew wade through an area with tents on the opposite side of the tracks. Far off near the power lines, a photographer with an expensive camera slung around his neck interviewed two residents.
The media circus was in town and the main attraction was the homeless. Reporters had decided that the sign of our depressed times were contemporary equivalents of Hoovervilles and shanty towns, now filled with Joe Plumbers and Soccer Moms, foreclosed on their McMansions, and occupying tents. Instead, the residents I talked had been homeless even before this present recession struck. Rose Aguilar wrote an excellent analysis of this for Alternet. More than half of the residents in my vicinity on the day of my visit were people of color. A survey conducted by a local group, Ending Chronic Homeless Initiative, of 29 residents last month found that more than half have been homeless for more than one year. Under 20-percent have been without a home for less than one year.
Many suffered from challenges that typically leave people on the outskirts of social and economic wellbeing. 64% are disabled and 43% suffer from emotional problems. About 17% were interested in attending drug and alcohol recovery housing. 14% were veterans. Informally, out of the six residents I spoke with, half admitted that they were on parole or had some record.
Jay, 26, was a baby-faced Black youth from Oakland. He has lived in Sacramento since 2002. He wore a large, oversized hooded sweatshirt and his braided hair reached his shoulders. He looked younger than 26, more like 17 or 18. His voice was soft and he cast his eyes to the ground when he spoke to me.
Jay was on parole, he ran out of money and had no where else to go. He heard about the encampment from people while walking around the city. He was jobless, he is looking for a job in construction or anything work that’s available. “Sometimes it feels like having a criminal record is a disadvantage. They should ban the box here, like in San Francisco. Your record has nothing to do with a job. Unless, you’re a bank robber working in a bank.” He smiled and dimpled at his own joke.
One of ARC’s findings in our Race and Recession report is that background checks on prospective or current employees effectively prevents Black and brown people from being employed. Black and Latinos are disproportionately represented among our nation’s incarcerated population, particularly men. Employers use the existence of criminal records as an excuse to screen out black and brown men.
Jay’s girlfriend Cora, a young Latina and Black woman, maintained that she lived in a house in Elk Grove as she stood wearing pajamas and socks in the middle of a circle of tents. She was also jobless. “It’s hard to get jobs now as a person of color because people are racist.” She submitted four applications to TJ Maxx, but didn’t get called back. A white manager told her that they weren’t hiring although an employee said that they were.
Returning home, I followed the news of the city shut down the tent city and forced the residents to relocate, to remove the “eyesore” so close to the state capital.
Some were moved to a shelter at the state fairgrounds, located at the periphery of the city. The residents of the budding community scattered, some going to the fairgrounds, others to overflow shelters, and still some stay on, refusing to be moved.
Where else can people go? “Sacramento has so many foreclosures,” Marcela said. “Why not let people live there?”
Cortland Bell, 39, a supervisor of the kitchen at the downtown Radisson Hotel, came up and introduced himself to me when I talked to the residents. A reedy Black man with long limbs and a slim stature, Cortland has lived in Sacramento for over 20 years but hails originally from Los Angeles. He was dressed in business casual, khaki pants and a button down shirt, attire appropriate for a working professional on a weekend.
“I’m walking through here because I know I could be here,” Cortland shared. He swept his arm to encompass all the tents in sight, “History and racism caused this. The U.S. is just as racist as it’s ever been.”
“Everyone in the U.S. is one paycheck away from being homeless,” said Fred Williams, 50, a black man originally from Youngstown, Ohio. “When they stop the war, the economy will go back up. Then, and only then. Until then, we’re stuck.”