It’s been a year since ‘The Zone’ homeless encampment shut down in Phoenix. What does the city’s homeless crisis look like now?
The I-Team found that calls for encampments or people needing help with homelessness went up in the months after “The Zone” was cleared in November 2023.
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Author: Erica Stapleton
Published: 6:53 PM PDT October 29, 2024
PHOENIX — As the sun sets, Erik Sanchez gets ready to go out. He makes sure his gun is in his holster, his bright green vest is on and his phone is live streaming. He’s going to feed the homeless.
Sanchez runs the MASA Project of Arizona, a volunteer group that offers aid to those experiencing homelessness.
“We hand out food, Narcan, water, free hugs, not drugs,” he said as he started walking on the canal near 23rd Ave. and Indian School in Phoenix.
He started to call out that dinner was ready as people emerged from the shadows.
The 12News I-Team met with Sanchez in early October. On that night, we saw dozens of people planning to stay the night on the canal. One of Sanchez’s volunteers estimated they serve anywhere from 60-100 people each night they’re there. Sanchez says they aim to go to this spot five nights a week.
“We don’t want to go to sleep hungry,” said a man named Isaac. “It’s terrible.”
Isaac shared with the I-team that he’d been homeless for the past four years. He admitted to struggling with drugs and struggling to get help.
“I’ve been trying to get on sober living and trying to get help from low-income places,” he said. “It’s just like a big waiting list.”
“I don’t think we’re bad people,” said a woman named Lasi. “We just don’t have a home to go to. “
Lasi said she’d been out in this neighborhood since December after she lost housing and didn’t have enough money to pay bills.
By choice or by circumstance, staying on the canal is not easy.
“Not knowing where you’re going to sleep at night makes it hard to be planned and ready for what you’re going to do the next day,” Lasi explained. “If you didn’t get robbed at night. It’s a lot to watch for out here.”
For her, Lasi said the relief from the MASA Project of Arizona has been essential. The organization’s grassroots efforts have grown over the past five years. Sanchez said they’ve helped people with a wide range of issues from hunger to heat to drug addiction.
He said he chooses to livestream all his outings as a way to shed light on the realities of Phoenix’s homeless crisis. He said his videos have also helped bring in volunteers and donations, which he said fund the operations.
“There needs to be more resources at night 8 p.m. to 4 a.m.,” Sanchez explained. “There’s not really much.”
“Do you see people out here that came from The Zone area?” asked I-Team reporter Erica Stapleton.
“A lot,” Sanchez said.
Increase in calls for encampments
For years, “The Zone” was Phoenix’s largest homeless encampment. There were more than a thousand people on the streets at its peak toward the end of 2022, heading into 2023.
In August 2022, neighbors sued the city for not doing enough to keep the area clean and safe.
Last year, a judge ordered the city to close the encampment down, giving a deadline of early November 2023. The city had already been working to shut down blocks in the neighborhood to camping.
“The city did successfully close all 15 blocks around the campus to camping,” said Rachel Milne, the Director of Phoenix’s Office of Homeless Solutions. “We made a commitment that we would offer every individual who was in that area an indoor place to go. Not everyone took us up on that offer. 82% did.”
The I-Team analyzed 16 months of data from the City of Phoenix. After sifting out duplicates and calls that were not related to PHX C.A.R.E.S, the I-Team found that calls for encampments or people needing help with homelessness went up in the months after “The Zone” was cleared in November 2023. The city provided data from January 2023 to March 26, 2023 in the public records request.
“I definitely think that over the last decade, we have seen a huge increase in the number of people experiencing homelessness in our community,” Milne said. “So, what they’re seeing and feeling is, you know, is true, we are seeing more people experiencing homelessness.”
In 2024, Maricopa County data shows a slight decrease in the number of people experiencing homelessness compared to 2023, going from 9,942 to 9,435. Those numbers are usually considered to be an undercount. The data, which comes from county-wide count one day in January, also shows an increase in people taking indoor shelter spaces.
The City of Phoenix has been working to add shelter beds for the past several years. According to the Office of Homeless Solutions, projects completed in 2022 and 2023 added 1,072 shelter beds. Milne said there are also another 590 beds currently under construction.
Milne also said the city is working to add resources beyond downtown Phoenix, where a majority of homeless service providers operate. For example, there’s a new 280-bed shelter space being built near 71st Ave. and Van Buren.
“We could use more,” Milne said. “I’ll tell you that anytime we open up a new site, it gets filled up very quickly because there are just more people in need of shelter than we have space available.”
Structured Campground
Even though there’s no camping allowed on the streets of “The Zone” neighborhood, there is camping allowed inside a gated lot at 15th Ave. and Jackson.
“It operates really just as a very well organized shelter would run,” Milne explained. “The difference is we’re outside.”
She’s talking about Phoenix’s Safe Outdoor Space. It’s a structured campground that can serve as a step forward for someone not yet able or willing to take an indoor shelter bed.
It wasn’t the city’s first option, but came about after shelter plans fell through in a different location due to environmental concerns.
The Safe Outdoor Space opened last November. It has round-the-clock security; air-conditioning and shaded spaces outside; bathrooms; laundry; meal times; they even allow some pets. The space has tents set up under a shade structure and rooms inside converted shipping containers. Capacity is 300 people.
“We do require them to be working on their case management, on ending their homelessness,” Milne said.
Right now, they average about 230-250 people staying on site, including Ralph Perez and his wife.
“A year ago we were sleeping under a bridge on 35th Avenue and Baseline,” he said.
He said he and his wife were homeless for about 3 years. He said they struggled with drugs and struggled with finding a shelter that would take them together.
“We didn’t have money, so we stole a lot,” Ralph said, noting conditions on the street were horrible. “I don’t have to do that here…they loved on us.”
He and his wife are staying in one of the converted shipping containers. His wife now has a job and he’s been sober for the better part of a year.
“Even though we’re homeless, this is the happiest we’ve been,” Perez said proudly.
A temporary solution to a chronic problem.
COVID relief financial cliff
“The most immediate outlook is really dire,” said Amy Schwabenlender, who runs Keys to Change, a collection of homeless services in downtown Phoenix.
They have about 900 beds on the campus – which are perpetually full.
“Even the one-time funding didn’t add enough capacity for everyone who’s experiencing homelessness; and homelessness continues to increase; and we’re full,” Amy said. “We don’t have enough capacity in shelter or housing for everyone who’s homeless in Maricopa County.”
The one time funding she’s talking about is COVID relief funding. Many homeless services providers, including Keys to Change (formerly the Human Services Campus) and the City of Phoenix, received millions of dollars through the CARES Act and the American Rescue Plan Act, or ARPA. The funds needed to be used for specific purposes in homeless services and all the funding needed to be used by the end of 2024.
Schwabenlender said the one-time funding helped save people’s lives during the pandemic, but the influx of money would be irreplaceable as the aid winds down through the end of the year.
As a result, she said they’ll be shutting down three of their bridge housing programs, meaning 200 people would need to be re-housed or placed in indoor shelters by the week of Thanksgiving. That also meant they had to tell 47 employees on October 1 that they would be losing their jobs.
“We don’t have replacement funding for all of that,” she said, noting the shortage of housing and shelter spaces and the limits on time. “It is achievable to accomplish it. It is daunting.”
Daunting, in part, she said because all providers who got COVID relief funding would likely have to make changes.
“We really haven’t had a regional response,” Schwabenlender said. “It’s a miss for me. We had a window of opportunity and I think we missed doing something differently.”
Phoenix has also had to shift its shelter operations as needs and funding changes, like closing down temporary hotel shelter spaces. But Milne said the investment in construction and permanent buildings for indoor shelter beds will continue to expand resources.
“We built that infrastructure,” Rachel Milne said. “Now it’s our community’s responsibility to figure out how we’re going to fund those operations moving forward.”
This Safe Outdoor Space structured campground is in the budget for another two years and then Phoenix will re-evaluate.
Back out on the canal, efforts are making a dent.
“I think it’s getting better,” Lasi said. “I think more people are taking up to the treatment…There’s less people out here now.”
Erik is still livestreaming as he and his group of volunteers get ready to move to a second location for the night. He thinks the more visible the problem, the less likely people will get lost in the shadows.
“Living like this is addicting,” he said. “And so you have to kind of adapt and approach on a different level. And so that’s what we do.”
“Meet people where they’re at,” said Erica Stapleton.
“Yes,” Sanchez said. “Sometimes it’s from the ground up.”