Policing Homelessness: Enforcing Neighborhood Change

• In Event: 40821 - Community and Urban Sociology Section Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Table 7. Governing Homelessness

Abstract

US cities have long embraced spatial removal to manage the visibility of homelessness. Despite increasingly investing in non-police alternatives, many municipalities still actively displace encampments and vehicle residences. Although literature demonstrates the harmful health and material effects of these tactics, their underlying determinants remain less clear. Prior studies often exclude vehicle dwellings, focus on formal sanctions, and fail to account for the unequal distribution of homelessness, which may moderate police contact. Addressing such gaps, this study leverages novel administrative and street outreach data to interrogate the relationship between contemporary removal practices and urban change in Seattle, WA. Spatiotemporal models suggest that the prevalence of homelessness in a neighborhood may not substantially influence the forced displacement of unsheltered residents. Instead, removal seems related to other contextual factors. Most notably, increases in property value positively predict encampment sweeps and vehicle impoundments. Both interventions also correlate with complaints and crime, while impoundments seem further associated with higher concentrations of Black residents. These findings extend prior theories on social control and neoliberal urbanism, suggesting that order maintenance policing may disproportionately target neighborhoods experiencing economic expansion. These patterns even appear to reflect existing racial and spatial disparities in law enforcement practices. Clarifying these mechanisms will help communities more effectively address processes that criminalize homelessness, perpetuate injustice, and reshape place.

Author

• Brandon Morande, University of Washington