Ruth Talbot was reporting in San Francisco when she witnessed a city worker pocket items as they cleared a homeless encampment. Nicole Santa Cruz was in Albuquerque, New Mexico, when she saw a city crew toss tents and everything inside into a garbage truck while police watched. As homelessness was surging nationwide and the Supreme Court was weighing whether such sweeps were constitutional, Talbot and Santa Cruz had set out to investigate whether cities were depriving unhoused people of another fundamental right – against the unlawful seizure of property.
In addition to reporting on the streets, they sent public records requests to 16 cities with large homeless populations and reviewed thousands of images and descriptions of items taken by municipal crews. The records showed cities regularly violated court orders and their own policies as they carried out sweeps, as the encampment removals are commonly known. From interviews with advocates and experts, it also became apparent that even when cities did store such property, homeless people rarely got it back. In other words, people already living on the margins of American society, were having what little they still owned taken away, sometimes repeatedly. These items ranged from survival gear to identification documents to irreplaceable mementos from family. It seemed imperative to continue the reporting after the court gave cities broader authority to push their homeless populations from public spaces.
The findings became the basis of Swept Away, a series examining how cities’ aggressive seizure of private property and how it hinders people’s ability to get secure housing.
The team wanted to center the perspectives of unhoused people, not talk past them using the voices of advocates in their place. But anyone who’s reported on homelessness knows how challenging that can be. Not only are they transient, making them difficult to reach, but also often traumatized and wary of strangers. This required a thoughtful approach and input from advocates and individuals experiencing homelessness. Alongside engagement reporters Asia Fields and Maya Miller, Santa Cruz and Talbot formed relationships with organizations that provide services to homeless people across the country. They were critical in facilitating introductions with homeless community members.
Once in the field, the reporters were careful to explain what they were doing and why, and how sources’ comments might be used in our work. They created a primer to ensure they understood what participation could mean for them. Through great effort, 150 people who had experienced sweeps spoke to Santa Cruz, Talbot, Fields and Miller. These conversations revealed the true harm of these policies and those insights — written by the subjects themselves — became the visual focus of Swept Away.
