As Tucson leaders search for solutions to an ongoing homelessness crisis, a city subcommittee tasked with researching housing solutions is looking to Phoenix, where a city-run campground is offering unhoused residents a space to camp outside.
In 2023, as a court order pushed Phoenix to move hundreds of unhoused people out of a sprawling downtown encampment, the city was coming up against a consistent challenge: most people didn’t want to stay in congregate shelters.
They told outreach workers that many shelters didn’t accept partners, pets or limited the belongings they could bring. In response, Phoenix tried a new approach: creating a city-run campground offering storage for belongings and more flexibility to stay with partners and pets.
“That has been quite appealing for certain people,” said Margaret Adams, with the city of Phoenix Office of Homeless Solutions. “This is one intervention, but it has really helped us in being able to provide services in an area that has had a significant amount of people who are unsheltered for many, many years.”
Now, a similar effort is early in consideration for Tucson.
Adams shared a presentation about the Safe Outdoor Space, as the campground is called, to Tucson’s Commission on Equitable Housing and Development in February.
The commission is exploring it as a potential recommendation to the mayor and city council. The next step would be opening up the idea for discussion by city council members, at which point the city would have to find a location, allocate funding and likely contract with potential partners for the effort before moving ahead.
“We really want to hone in on this because it is unique and hasn’t been tried in Tucson,“ said Tisha Tallman, CEO of the Primavera Foundation and vice chair of the housing committee.
That presentation comes as a new report from the Tucson Pima Collaboration to End Homelessness raises the alarm that homelessness remains a dire and growing problem for Pima County communities.
“We [have] not yet observed any slowing of inflow into homelessness and there is increasing visibility of unsheltered homelessness in our community,” the January 2025 report says. It cites dynamics including a rise in rents over the last few years, high regional poverty and a decline in shelter beds and transitional housing.
A look into Phoenix’s city-run camping space
Phoenix has operated the Safe Outdoor Zone since November 2023, and is scheduled to run the space for three years. The long-term goal of the space, said Adams, is to move people into indoor housing. So far, it has served 1,359 people. The average stay is 90 days, but that varies, said Adams. In its first year, 54% of people who left the facility returned to unsheltered situations, said Phoenix officials.
The camping zone is a turf area under an awning connected to a large warehouse on the west side of downtown Phoenix. There is approximately 4 acres, with an outdoor sleeping area that has capacity for 200 tents, or a total of 300 people, according to a city of Phoenix report.
Residents who want to camp in the tents must be referred through service providers, and are issued a tent by the city. People who may need a more structured housing environment for medical or other reasons have the option to stay in one of 38 reconfigured, solar-powered shipping containers adjacent to the tents.
The area has bathrooms, showers, regular laundry service, bike racks and picnic tables. We were “really wanting to put a lot of the amenities that you would want to see anywhere,” said Adams. The area also has full-time security.
Phoenix contracts with several nonprofit providers to offer services on site, says Adams, including mental health, behavioural health and employment services.
“It’s not a completely no-barrier site but it’s as low-barrier as possible,” said Adams during her presentation at the virtual meeting.
Key to the site is a good neighbor agreement that outlines the expectations for the city, the surrounding businesses and neighbors and the people who are using the site. The outdoor zone also has a community advisory committee. No people who live at the site are on the advisory committee, said Adams, but the space also holds town halls for residents.
Tucson considers managed campground option again
If the committee makes a recommendation for city council to consider a formal campground for unhoused communities, it won’t be the first time the idea has been introduced. Former city councilmember Steve Kozachik proposed the idea in February 2022, according to news reports at the time.
“What we’re doing is not working. And what I’m proposing is not some silver bullet that is going to end homelessness,” Kozachik said at the time. “But right now, all we’re doing is moving people from alley to alley and from wash to wash.”
Several current Tucson city council members said they would be interested in more formally considering the proposal for a structured campground.
Ward 6 council member Karin Uhlich said she was interested in learning more about a campground site. If it became operational, said Uhlich, she expected it would most likely be operated in partnership with an experienced nonprofit organization.
“Key benefits could include engaging people into the site who have not engaged in existing low barrier shelters; if this offers relief needed so that we reduce the numbers of people sleeping outdoors (on other public or sometimes private properties) it is well-worth pursuing further,” Uhlich said in an email to Arizona Luminaria.
Ward 3 council member Kevin Dahl said he was also open to the idea of a structured campground.
He would be interested to see “a place that has individual spots, bathrooms, lockers, security, a limited time frame for staying, and most importantly social workers to do assessments and offer pathways to services,” Dahl told Arizona Luminaria by email.
Dahl also said he was interested in the city working with partners like Pima County to create a space for people who are living in their cars to park overnight.
One group that can offer a unique insight into the logistics of more formalized camping areas is Splinter Collective, a community space that worked with unhoused neighbors in a nearby park to offer services, including a charging station and a microwave to heat up food. The group applied for and was awarded a city grant but it only worked in reimbursements, they wrote on their website, requiring the group to fundraise while working to meet the needs of its neighbors.
“Our experience working with the long term encampment at Estevan Park was that folks there created a tight knit community and were able to self regulate. The encampment had a familial vibe, and folks were very good at supporting each other through difficult times,” said Natalie Nguyen, co-director of the collective. “Repeated camp sweeps fracture these relationships and push folks into more and more tenuous and traumatic situations.”
Still, said Nguyen, Splinter Collective recognizes that sanctioned encampments came with some concerns, including increased surveillance and policing. Depending on the location, a campground could put folks in areas that are far from available services and even simple things like convenience stores and bus lines.
In Phoenix, the Safe Outdoor Space came about in response to a lawsuit. A coalition of business and property owners sued the city over an unsanctioned sprawling downtown homeless encampment and in September 2023, a federal judge ordered Phoenix to remove tents and other makeshift structures from the area.
Adams said the city had to do some construction when they purchased the site, such as putting in the turf, sprinkler systems, and lighting. The Safe Outdoor Space was funded through a mix of COVID-19 relief funds, U.S. Department of Housing funding, and money from Phoenix’s general funds, said Adams.
“I don’t want to say this was a low-cost intervention,” said Adams, who said it took about $6.5 million to purchase and convert the area now being used for the space.
The formalized campground is only one part of the work Phoenix is doing around housing issues, said Adams. That includes converting motels into affordable housing, which Tucson is doing as well.
Most recently, Tucson’s Housing and Community Development Department held a groundbreaking ceremony to celebrate turning the Amazon Motel into permanent supportive housing units for very low-income households. The city is also in the midst of establishing a low-barrier emergency shelter that could open this spring.
Creating new housing is important, said the Tucson Pima Collaboration to End Homelessness report, but it also encouraged local officials to focus on homeless prevention.
The report suggests several approaches, including assistance to pay rent or mortgages so people don’t lose their home, or to pay for car payments so a traffic issue doesn’t keep them from losing their job. “It doesn’t have to just be housing focused,” said Sara Shuman, a co-author of the report.
City council member Dahl said he recognized it was cheaper to keep people in their homes and out of homelessness all together. His office had allocated federal funding to rent assistance, but that money was now gone. He said he hoped to shift some money into that effort in the coming year.
“The upcoming fiscal year is going to be tight, but I hope we can establish some funding to continue doing this,” he said.
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