As part of Tempe’s initiative to combat homelessness, the city has created a park safety program meant to improve city parks and support those experiencing homelessness.
This effort is the result of a collaboration of the city’s human services, police, community services, neighborhood services, and communication and media relations departments after the council “emphasized safety for all community members and not criminalizing homelessness” throughout parks at a recent work session.
For several years, the task force has been working towards ensuring that the city is focused on providing services and support to individuals experiencing homelessness while also finding proactive ways to address issues and concerns that come along, Paul Bentley, deputy human services director, explained.
“[The council requested] staff to spend more dedicated time and effort to come up with a comprehensive proposal...to promote not only the support services for individuals experiencing homelessness but also for the health and safety for the community as a whole with parks being kind of a catalyst for this conversation,” Mr. Bentley said.
The Park Safety Program was designed to broadly address the different ways the city could improve upon park maintenance by addressing the homelessness problem at its core.
“Nationally and locally, our counts for individuals experiencing homelessness is on the rise,” Mr. Bentley said. “This is a national crisis, not just a local one.”
With a renewed commitment to reducing the number of individuals experiencing homelessness, the program aims to help mitigate this crisis by bringing the city’s population experiencing homelessness to a “functional zero.”
“What we mean by functional zero is that when it comes to homelessness, we want that experience to be rare,” Mr. Bentley explained.
While rates of homelessness are still increasing, he explained that the rates of homelessness in other cities are much higher than the increase seen in Tempe.
The strategies outlined in the park safety proposal plan to contribute to this goal by increasing services in parks through increasing on-demand support and shelter spaces for people experiencing homelessness. This helps to give homeless individuals a permanent place to seek resources to hopefully escape this situation.
“Once the individuals reach that state of housing or permanent housing, they’re able to stay there and are sustainable in that situation,” he said.
Tackling the core of the problem
To better address, the needs of homeless individuals, the park safety program has a strategy for providing expanded mental health and substance use services to address crises that may occur in parks.
Along with the services dedicated to homeless individuals, the park security in-place will be reformed based on community input on this safety protocol.
“Our community is very engaged within the City of Tempe’s government and communicates very clearly their needs and wants,” Mr. Bentley said.
Although there have been benefits with decreased police calls to parks because of the recent addition of park security, there is a resident concern with the G4S department in the parks and its choice to arm those on patrol. Since the program’s implementation, police calls to parks have decreased and fewer incidents have been reported.
“Today, there has been no negative interactions with them having that tool within their within their toolbox,” Mr. Bentley said.
However, he explained that because of what they’ve heard from the community, going forward the program will no longer make use of armed personnel.
Part of the plan also includes a strategy dedicated to improving upon the maintenance and upkeep of parks.
“We have to be able to address the aesthetic of our parks and the cleanliness of our parks so that they are seen as a healthy place to be for all who want to use them,” Mr. Bentley said.
This multi-faceted approach holistically improves upon city parks by aiding and supporting the homeless individual population and bettering the quality of the parks themselves. Mr. Bentley attributes the media and communications department to facilitate the spread of information about the proposal.
“All of these things work in tandem with one another, they’re all necessary to be implemented, and centering housing is a component of that which is stabilizing individuals in a place known as a shelter,” he said.
Meet Caroline Caroline Yu joined Independent Newsmedia, Inc., USA, in 2020 as a summer intern covering Scottsdale. As an intern, she continued her coverage of Scottsdale, Paradise Valley and Tempe. After graduating in 2022, Caroline became a full-time reporter for Scottsdale and Paradise Valley. She is currently reporting for the Tempe market.
Community: She is a supporter of the environment and tries to get involved with related community events.
Education: Arizona State University with a BA in Journalism and Mass Communications, with a minor in French.
Random Fact: She used to be a ballet dancer for 10 years.
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