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Friend, Homecoming weekend at Alabama A&M University is always a busy one in Huntsville. But earlier this month, while undergrads and alums celebrated the big game with parties, concerts and a parade, a much smaller group of people huddled in the shadow of the Interstate 565/Highway 431 interchange, trying to figure out where they were going to live in the coming days. The morning was quiet except for the hiss of tires from the nearby roadway. The wood smoke, tainted by the smell of burnt plastic, created a haze over the dew and burned both eyes and nostrils. For the fourth time in as many years, the city of Huntsville was giving notice that they were closing a homeless encampment. City administrators had determined the treed lot, known as “The Slab,” had become dangerous for the 75 to 100 people living there after a fire tore through the camp in September. This time, they were moving 100 yards down the road, so city workers could clean up the old encampment – or conduct what is commonly called a camp sweep. At the new site, a woman named Danita, who said she was in her 60s but did not want to provide her last name, was trying to get her belongings together, sitting in the middle of a pile of clothes and bags, a shopping cart full of belongings next to her. While sorting through her things, she related how the housing authority, without explanation, denied her request for affordable housing. “I went to the housing authority and tried to get an apartment,” Danita said, adding that they took her information but would not provide a place for her to rent. “So now I’m back to square one.” Although she had tried to find housing within her means through the authority, Danita had nowhere else to go but the piece of ground that the city had provided for the campsite. Duane, who also did not want to share his last name and splits his time between The Slab and a house his mother shares with her sister, was sorting out Danita’s belongings, trying to create some semblance of order. He had already set his orange nylon tent up on the other side of the new compound, along the hurricane fence that bounded the site.
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