You may have noticed an increase in the number of homeless encampments and tent cities throughout the U.S. over the past year. Well, apparently you can just go ahead and get used to them, as they're evidently a semi-permanent fixture now:

In this year of halting, pandemic travel, I've seen sprawling homeless encampments mushroom in Los Angeles; Venice Beach, Calif.; San Francisco; Portland (both Oregon and Maine); Seattle; Reno, Nevada; Boston, Philadelphia and New York.

These are all places I've been before and have seen unhoused folks over the years, but it's different this time. There are more encampments, for sure. And they're in new parts of cities. No longer tucked away in alleys and empty lots as places for homeless folks to catch some unmolested sleep, they're becoming places where people live - they're communities.

Tent cities are nothing new in American history, but it has been many decades—roughly since the Great Depression—since they have been so numerous and well-established.

The work-from-home world is going to freak as it returns to see the cities that have sprouted within their familiar downtowns.

Yikes.

Imagine if you were driving downtown Philadelphia and saw this:

Many cities have chosen to ignore the issue altogether. Others have shelled out huge sums to create city-sponsored tent cities.

In either case, these "places where people live" are clearly not going away anytime soon.

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