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News Analysis

Nearly all of the homeless people who lived at the “Tent City” on the American River had left the site by Thursday morning, but the media outlets were still there.

Sacramento’s Tent City has received so much news coverage that the media hubbub itself plays a large part in the story.

The city’s removal of the campsite Thursday was no exception. Television journalists from several outlets — including KCRA Channel 3, CBS Channel 13 and Noticias Univision Channel 19 – were at the scene, covering the camp’s removal.

While the media has seized on the Tent City story, campgrounds created by homeless people are not a new phenomenon in Sacramento. For years, homeless people have been creating small camps in the city, according to Sgt. Norm Leong of the Sacramento Police Department.

Nonetheless, the Google News website Thursday afternoon listed 204 news stories in response to the search: Sacramento tent city.

Photojournalist Scott Zentner, from CBS Channel 13 and CW Channel 31, was at the site Thursday to cover the cleanup. When asked what he thought about the Tent City media frenzy, he said he hadn’t really thought about it.

But Carol Davis, who lived at Tent City, had an immediate negative reaction when asked the same question.

“It sucks,” Davis said, adding that she didn’t like reporters taking pictures of the camp.

Davis was sitting near the site Thursday, as vehicles hauled away the odds and ends that former residents had left behind. Now that Tent City is gone, she said she didn’t know where to go.

Filmmaker Costa Mantis criticized media coverage of the issue. He said that “nobody else seems to be telling the truth,” about Tent City. That’s why he’s been reporting on Tent City via YouTube, he said. Mantis said he lived at Tent City for 16 days in a tent, while journalists come to the site for 20 minutes to get a story.

Meanwhile, the extensive media coverage didn’t bother Thom Dickens, who lives at a camp adjacent to Tent City. He said the police, not the media, are the problem. He also said Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson are to blame.

The clearing of the site was not the only story Thursday. Reporters were also covering a planned protest by the charity Loaves and Fishes. Sister Libby Fernandez of Loaves and Fishes said she and other protesters would refuse to leave a campsite adjacent to Tent City. “We are standing in solidarity” and will not leave this property until we’re removed, she said.

The protest will take days, Fernandez said. Protesters will be staying at the campsite in shifts. There isn’t enough shelter or housing in Sacramento for the city's nearly 4,000 homeless people, she said.

But Leong said Loaves and Fishes is incorrect when it says there is no shelter space. “As of yet, we’ve not filled up the spaces,” Leong said.

He noted that the locations where couples can stay together are limited. Sacramento police are ready to give out vouchers for temporary housing and motels, he said.

Asked about the nearby campsite, Leong said that Sacramento has had “little camp areas” for more than 11 years. The city is concerned about clearing the Tent City because it’s on private property, he said. But he also noted that it is illegal in Sacramento to camp.

“But you cannot tell me it’s OK to camp when I have shelter space open.”

The police are not trying to shut down the protesters, according to Leong.

“We’re allowing them to air their concerns, and basically show to the media, which is their primary target, that they have issues that they want voiced,” Leong said. “We’re prepared to let them do that right now.”

Leong described the police department’s relationship with the homeless in the area as “really positive.”

The police department's count for the number of homeless people who lived at the Tent City was between 100 and 120, according to Leong.