St. Louis officials have drafted a plan to decrease tent encampments across the city through a holistic approach — including a scoring rubric that assesses if encampments should be disbanded or simply monitored based on community risk.
It's called the Unhoused Response Policies and Procedures Manual, a 17-page draft that lays out methods for collaborating with various social and human service groups that would connect people living in encampments with the appropriate resources, such as transitional and long-term housing, medical services and other assistance.
Mayor Cara Spencer said the draft plan builds on last year's Code Blue emergency winter response. St. Louis temporarily increased shelter beds, activated bus routes and deployed warming buses as temperatures dropped to below freezing last winter.
"We have a long way to go in appropriately, humanely, and effectively addressing homelessness in St. Louis," Spencer said. "This is one step in getting there." She said eventually she'd like to bring in regional partners from St. Charles County and beyond.
The plan, led by the mayor's office, has not been finalized or approved at this point. It is currently being reviewed by the Board of Aldermen, the city's Continuum of Care board and other stakeholders, officials said. And as of Thursday, Spencer said she didn't have a clear idea of costs.
The plan includes working across various departments — the Department of Health, Department of Human Services, Department of Public Safety, Department of Streets, Emergency Medical Services and the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department — to create an Encampment Task Force.
Together, these groups have three main goals: Determine the public health and safety risk posed by individual encampments, maximize available services to those living in encampments and disband groups that are deemed to present a high risk to the surrounding community.
Some tent encampments operate quietly, bringing little to no attention to them, said Adam Pearson, director of the city's Department of Human Services. Those considered high-risk create a lot of noise and tend to yield numerous police complaints about violence and assault, he said. According to the draft plan, other high-risk factors include weapons that are visible or accessible, suspected human trafficking, and drug distribution.
"Maybe they're close to or sit right on city infrastructure that we need to work on or have access to for city operations," Pearson said. "The size of the encampment is something that we also think about. The presence of children, for example, these are different indicators that let us know we might need to focus a little bit more on that particular encampment."
For high-risk encampments, the draft plan states that the city's Human Services Department, the Health Department and other outreach teams will have 21 days to conduct outreach and provide case management services. After those 21 days, another risk assessment would be conducted. If disbandment is approved, individuals living at the encampment will be given a seven-day notice to vacate as the city would continue to provide resources.
Homeless individuals and advocates in recent years condemned the city for not honoring promises and being quick to disband encampments without effectively helping the people living in them. Former Mayor Tishaura Jones touted the fact that camps were disbanded from in front of City Hall and Poelker Park in 2023, and said they did in fact work to provide shelter and resources.
But space is often limited at year-round shelters in the city. They tend to fill up fast, especially during winter as temperatures drop to below freezing. And after an EF3 tornado ripped through the St. Louis region in May 2025, the city's homeless population increased as some residents lost their homes and moved to live in vacant buildings. Others are still living in unrepaired homes because they have been unable to apply for city, state or federal assistance.
Because the city is facing a "housing crisis," Spencer said the goal is not to remove every encampment immediately — there aren't enough resources for that, she said. The goal is to prioritize disbanding locations that pose a risk to the surrounding community first. She said the draft plan sets up a structure for the Encampment Task Force to take in and assess complaints from alderpersons and community members. Then, they'll work across city departments to determine the best course of action for encampments and those living in them.
Pearson said outreach teams will aim to build a rapport with individuals living in encampments by talking to them and asking about the specific services they need — like whether they need food or mental health support. He said they'll also take note of their own observations.
"Do we see the presence of children's toys around or diapers? Do we see anybody who is extremely sick out here, or somebody with a major mobility issue," Pearson said. "(We'll) talk about it as a team, and that helps to kind of frame what our approach is going to be and how we have future conversations."
Various city and partner organizations collect what's called a Point-in-Time Count on a single night in January every year to track the number of people experiencing homelessness and those living in shelters — this year's count was nearly 1,800 city residents. The count increased by about 9% from last year.
Kathy Connors, chair of the city's Continuum of Care board and executive director of Gateway 180, said the city is also putting a lot of effort into landlord recruitment.
"Only housing ends homelessness," Connors said. "We actually conduct two large events per year to recruit and thank second-chance landlords. We also have created the St. Louis Metro Housing Collective, (which) meets every other Thursday. It's a platform for landlords and social service agencies to come together and really talk through the issues, the challenges, so that it's not insurmountable, and that individuals, landlords, can step in with confidence and know they have support in sometimes housing individuals who have had challenging backgrounds in the area of housing and income."
Tent encampments are dispersed in various locations across the city, notably at 10th Street and Cass Avenue, with some popping up in clusters downtown.
A temporary encampment formed outside the Concord Apartment complex in the city's Marine Villa neighborhood after tenants and people experiencing homelessness were cited and kicked out in April during a police raid. Prosecutors later dismissed the citations and shifted their focus to the absentee landlord as advocates decried the city's actions.
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