Dr. Chamard interviewed for tent cities report by National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty and Yale Law School project

Dr. Sharon Chamard, Justice Center faculty, was recently interviewed by Julie Hunter of the Allard K. Lowenstein International Human Rights Clinic at Yale Law School, for a report about tent cities in the U.S. The report is being done in partnership with the National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty.

Dr. Sharon Chamard authored a monograph entitled, "Homeless Encampments," for the Problem-Oriented Guides for Police Problem-Specific Guides Series, and was asked to give her perspective on this topic for the upcoming report.

The goal of the report is to document the rise of tent cities in this country since the beginning of the economic downturn and will look at:

• benefits and disadvantages of tent cities, 
• practical obstacles faced by tent city managers and residents, 
• local government responses, and 
• legal and practical resources available to ameliorate and support the situation of tent city residents.

Dr. Chamard's monograph was released as part of the series published by the Center for Problem-Oriented Policing, Office of Community Oriented Policing Services, U.S. Department of Justice.

The monograph describes the problem of homeless encampments (also known as transient camps) and reviews contributing factors. It identifies a series of questions to help police and other decision-makers analyze their local problems with homeless encampments, and then presents a review of responses to the problem and what is known about them from evaluative research and police practice.