This document discusses addressing homelessness in public parks. It summarizes research on the issue, including interviews with various stakeholders. It finds that short-term responses to homelessness in parks are costly and ineffective, often displacing people and making it harder for outreach workers. It recommends public education to build understanding and support for longer-term, collaborative approaches between parks, social services, and communities to ultimately help resolve homelessness, not just displace it temporarily from parks. Public education could help shift focus from reactive responses to proactive engagement and support for resolving its root causes.

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W W W. N R P A . O R G
Addressing Homelessness in Parks | Recreation and Resilience | Programming for all Generations
2019
PARK&REC
TRENDS

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Addressing
Homelessness
in Public Parks
P
ublic parks are designed to provide aesthetically pleasing green spaces where communities can
gather for recreation, rest and leisure. Given that communities are not homogenous, user conflict
between groups might seem inevitable. The growing concern with homelessness in parks serves as
a strong and timely example of these conflicts. Park managers are tasked not only with mitigating
social conflicts between traditionally housed park users and those facing homelessness, but also a variety of
safety, health, experiential and environmental concerns related to homelessness in parks.
A call for public education
By Milo Neild, M.S., and Jeff Rose, Ph.D.
PHOTOS
COURTESY
OF
MILO
NEILD

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H O M E L E S S N E S S
The National Park and Recre-
ation Association (NRPA) has re-
cently devoted increased attention
to homelessness in parks, hosting
and attending national conference
sessions and innovation labs (www.
nrpa.org/events/innovation-labs/
innovation-labs-los-angeles-califor
nia/), surveying park and recreation
departments and local government
agencies and openly sharing the
outcomes. To better understand the
complexity of homelessness within
municipal public parks and people’s
concerns, challenges, successes and
hopes from a wide array of per-
spectives, we conducted a series of
in-depth, semi-structured interviews
(n = 19) with park managers, main-
tenance crews, people experiencing
homelessness, police departments,
health departments and social ser-
vice providers. One of the themes
that resonated across the research,
from an overwhelming portion of
those interviewed, was that they
clearly expressed a need for public
education to better address home-
lessness in our public parks.
The Jordan River Parkway
Case Study
Our study took place in Salt Lake
City, Utah, along the Jordan River
Parkway. The parkway is a narrow
riparian corridor that takes park us-
ers along a paved, multiuse trail run-
ning the length of the Jordan River.
This area has been an ongoing con-
cern for park management, as law
enforcement and community mem-
bers have voiced concerns about the
prevalence of people experiencing
homelessness who live along the
trail and riparian corridor.
Our interviews with communi-
ty stakeholders revealed that their
concerns involving homelessness
shaped the nature of park man-
agement responses to homeless-
ness. The symptomatic impacts of
homelessness, such as trash, camps
and the ongoing presence of peo-
ple experiencing homelessness,
often upset housed park users and
drove many of them to voice public
complaints to park management,
police departments and health de-
partments. Complaints to park de-
partments included requests to re-
move trees, restrooms, vegetation,
pavilion walls and benches used by
people experiencing homelessness.
Invested community members of
park advisory boards also urged park
management to quickly eliminate
homelessness within their parks.
However, a daunting task like home-
lessness has proven almost impossi-
ble to eliminate, especially for park
managers who are well outside of
the social services realm. Constant
public pressure regarding homeless-
ness was reported to be stressful and
costly for park departments, and of-
ten felt beyond the scope of their pro-
fessional duties and training.
Community insistence on a quick
response to homelessness seemed
to encourage the use of short-
term, immediate responses by park
management. For example, main-
tenance crews were often pulled
from their regular park duties and
tasked with posting eviction notic-
es at camps, throwing away camp
belongings and removing healthy
vegetation and park infrastructure
to discourage homelessness and
public complaints. Predictably, such
short-term, symptomatic responses
failed to encourage lasting change.
Park staff often felt they were
“chasing people up and down the
river,” as those living in the park
simply relocated to another area of
the parkway and the process start-
ed all over again.
The Price of Short-Term
Responses
The cyclical nature of responding
to the public’s complaints about
homelessness was incredibly costly
for the parks. The negative public at-
tention caused one park department
to invest more than half the budget
intended for an entire city park sys-
tem on responding to homelessness.
Staff members were unable to com-
plete other aspects of their regular
park maintenance, and some be-
lieved their parks were “slowly de-
grading” as a result. The removal of
The Jordan River Parkway Trail in Salt
Lake City, Utah.

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vegetation, designed to reduce visi-
ble and material cover for those fac-
ing homelessness, concerned much
of the park staff, as existing vegeta-
tion often enhances the aesthetics of
the park, absorbs urban stormwater
and mitigates soil erosion. The so-
cial value of the parks was also
thought to be compromised, as park
infrastructure, such as park benches
and pavilions, provide spaces for
people to gather, build social capital
and rest. The price of short-term re-
sponses to homelessness is paid by
the parks, as well as by the housed
and unhoused community mem-
bers who use them.
Public complaints led to high
frequencies of responses to home-
lessness that were especially harm-
ful to park residents and social
service providers. Depending on
the municipality, evictions often re-
occurred every 24 to 48 hours. The
subsequent displacement not only
kept those experiencing homeless-
ness from accessing needed social
services, but also made it difficult
for outreach workers from local so-
cial service agencies to locate cur-
rent and potential clients. In addi-
tion, the disposal of belongings by
park maintenance staff burdened
the limited financial resources of
people living in the park.
The loss of belongings forced
those living in parks to repeatedly
purchase or procure more blankets,
clothes and supplies needed to sur-
vive the outdoor elements, instead
of conserving money for housing,
healthcare and/or personal expens-
es. One park resident paced while
expressing his frustration with fre-
quent cleanups. “I don’t know where
to put this stuff,” he says. “[I need
somewhere to keep it] so I can go to
work, you know. I’m always pulling
this stuff around because I get tired
of having to go get clothes and blan-
kets and tents. It’s expensive.”
This ongoing cycle contributes
to park resident homelessness, as
fears of belonging loss maintains
homelessness for many people. Fear
of losing belongings keeps many
from seeking out employment or
social services that would help to
resolve their state of homelessness.
Park management indicated in our
interviews that it was generally un-
aware that short-term, symptomatic
responses to homelessness uninten-
tionally prolong instances of home-
lessness in public parks.
Resolving the complex issues as-
sociated with homelessness in parks
requires time, understanding and
collaboration. A focus on resolv-
ing the causes, as opposed to the
symptoms, of homelessness may
substantially reduce the prevalence
of unsheltered homelessness in
parks. Nearly all the people living in
the park desired housing and were
not content with residing in public
parks. One resident shared how so-
cial service outreach workers helped
her find housing off of the parkway.
“I remember the first time [out-
reach workers],” she shares. “They
come up and right away announced
‘we’re [outreach].’ It’s not the po-
lice, so I just sat there for a minute,
and I thought should I say some-
thing. So, I said, ‘Okay I’m getting
dressed,’ [and] they’re like, ‘we’ll
wait.’ So they took me to [transi-
tional housing]. I had an apartment
for five or six years.” Years later, she
only returned to the parkway after
subsequently losing housing.
A Person-First Approach
A person-first approach, both sym-
pathetic and problem-oriented,
is helpful for engaging with folks
living through homelessness. Most
park managers believe that fully
addressing the causes of homeless-
ness is complex and outside the
scope of recreation professionals.
Doing so would require substan-
tial collaborative efforts with so-
cial service providers. However,
transitioning people into housing
often takes time, and social service
providers use progressive engage-
ment when interacting with those
experiencing homelessness. This
approach allows outreach workers
to build trust through a series of
interactions over a period of time,
while working to secure housing.
A social service provider explains
that usually “we have a 24-hour
window before a cleanup and [park
residents] are going to be gone in 24
hours. I think that really we need a
seven-day leeway so we have some
time to engage with them and ac-
tually get some things in place to
make that an easy situation for
them to navigate.” Depending on
the circumstances, housing may
take hours or months to coordinate,
and repeated displacement resulting
A sleeping burrow formed out of vegeta-
tion on a bank of Utah’s Jordan River.

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H O M E L E S S N E S S
from short-term solutions would
compromise housing efforts. Public
education is vital to the implemen-
tation of long-term solutions.
Given the discomfort voiced
through public complaints and cit-
izen advisors, long-term solutions
would require the approval of the
community. Park managers see pub-
lic education as an important step
in generating community support
to address homelessness in parks.
Efforts by park and recreation agen-
cies to educate the public may take
multiple forms, including interpre-
tive signage, pamphlets, public state-
ments, community meetings, forums
and online platforms, including so-
cial media. A relatively concise list
of talking points may be helpful for
agencies seeking to engage in public
education. Based on research find-
ings, we recommend the following
components of public education:
• All members of the community
are welcome to use public parks
and open spaces.
- Parks and other public spaces
are key spaces for functional
communities.
- Everybody is welcome to
use parks for recreation,
relaxation, rest and leisure.
- Those experiencing
homelessness are part of our
community.
- Public parks and open spaces
can be a more comfortable
space for those experiencing
homelessness.
- Know the rules of the park;
call the parks or police
department when necessary.
- High volumes of public
complaints may strain park
resources.
• Anyone can experience
homelessness.
- Each person experiencing
homelessness is unique.
- Those experiencing
homelessness may face issues,
such as extreme poverty,
physical and mental health
concerns and/or addiction.
- Such barriers and limited
community resources make
homelessness difficult to
overcome.
- Depending on individual
circumstances and available
community resources,
securing housing can take
longer than six months.
• We will see less unsheltered
homelessness as our community
works to resolve homelessness.
- Become familiar with the
organizations that serve those
experiencing homelessness.
- Provide support and/
orvolunteer for local
organizations that work to
resolve homelessness.
- Public complaints may result
in the displacement of those
experiencing homelessness
and make it more difficult for
organizations to engage people
in resolving their homelessness.
Publicly displaying these state-
ments, and even their full adop-
tion in communities, is unlikely
to resolve the prevalence of home-
lessness in parks. Park managers
are currently straining limited
resources to appease public com-
plaints and regain community
support of public parks. However,
public education may help shift,
and eventually transform, the
evolving dynamics between com-
munities and park systems facing
unsheltered homelessness.
As one park manager states: “I
don’t think that throwing all of
our public lands’ resources into
addressing homeless camps is the
best approach, not just because it
seems like a cyclical problem, and
it’s not a permanent improvement.
By and large, people tend to over-
react about the impact of home-
less camps on our property, and a
large part comes from a somewhat
irrational fear of people who are
different because they don’t have
a home. If we could just be a lit-
tle more comfortable with the ex-
istence of homeless people in our
society, we could put money into
things that are more positively im-
pactful for everyone.”
The suggested messaging could
help park managers regain the vital
public support needed to shift from
reactive, costly, short-term respons-
es to proactive, holistic engagements
with homelessness in parks. In the
case of an educated public faced
with resolving homelessness in
parks, knowledge is power.
Milo Neild, M.S., is an Academic Associate
in the College of Public Service &
Community Solutions at Arizona State
University (mneild@asu.edu). Jeff Rose,
Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor-Lecturer in
the Department of Parks, Recreation and
Tourism at the University of Utah
(jeff.rose@utah.edu).
A note left by a park resident details their
stolen belongings, which, in their words,
amount to “my world.”