Phoenix clears parking lots to make way for sprawling tent city packed with homeless people - as experts warn of 'catastrophic' crisis caused by pandemic

Tent cities are expanding across the United States as experts warn that the ongoing pandemic could lead to a 'catastrophic' homeless crisis where hundreds of thousands more Americans are living on the streets. 

Officials in Phoenix, Arizona have cleared two large parking lots in the Bender neighborhood to accommodate for the city's exploding number of homeless people. 

More than 7,500 people are without permanent shelter in Phoenix, according to Reuters, who visited the tent city, which is dubbed 'The Zone' by some of its inhabitants. 

There, hundreds of homeless people are packed together. Many people do not wear masks, and some count a sleeping bag or a tarp as their only worldly possession. 

Although the city has posted portable toilets and washing stations along the perimeter of the encampment, health protocols like handwashing are difficult and the risks of contracting COVID-19 is exponentially increased. 

Feces and garbage are also littered among the tent city, which is located just a short distance from Phoenix's ritzy restaurants and luxury apartment buildings.  

Officials in Phoenix, Arizona have cleared two large parking lots in the Bender neighborhood to accommodate for the city's exploding number of homeless people

Feces and garbage are also littered among the tent city, which is located just a short distance from Phoenix's ritzy restaurants and luxury apartment buildings

More than 7,500 people are without shelter in Phoenix, according to Reuters, who visited the tent city, which is dubbed 'The Zone' by some of its inhabitants

Phoenix is just one example of a slow-motion disaster unfolding in many large US cities as homeless numbers, already growing in recent years, spike during the global coronavirus pandemic.

In 2019, before the pandemic hit, there were close to 600,000 Americans who were homeless. That number has surely surged in the past twelve months, although experts have been unable to pinpoint the exact number. 

Since COVID-19 reached the US in January, however, more than 162,000 evictions have been filed in 27 cities tracked by the Princeton University Eviction Lab.

With cities facing a steep hit to their tax bases due to lockdowns aimed at curbing the virus's spread, homeless advocates say the federal government must step in, and estimate another $11.5 billion is needed immediately.

New funding for the homeless is not included in a $900-billion pandemic relief package passed by Congress on Monday. The fate of the bill has been thrown up in the air after outgoing President Donald Trump threatened not to sign it.

Meanwhile, the $4 billion provided earlier this year through the March CARES Act bailout and the US Department of Housing and Urban Development is running out.

'It's not just the pandemic, it's the financial fallout from the pandemic and the complete lack of a comprehensive response to the pandemic from the federal government,'  Diane Yentel, who advised the transition team of President-elect Joe Biden, told Reuters. 

Biden's transition team did not respond to requests for comment. But fixing the affordable housing crisis was a pillar of his campaign platform, and included a pledge to spend $640 billion over 10 years to create affordable housing and 'end' homelessness.

'Addressing homelessness remains the most pressing health equity challenge of our time. And it´s about to get worse,' Dr. Howard K. Koh, a professor of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, told the news agency. 

'I didn't think my life could get any worse': One inhabitant of Phoenix's tent city told Reuters she feels helpless and doesn't see a light at the end of the tunnel

As the coronavirus began to ravage the United States in the spring of 2020, federal, state and local governments issued temporary bans on many evictions, with an eye on the economic and health consequences of increased homelessness.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in September followed up with a nationwide ban that the stimulus deal would extend to January 31.

So far, Congress has no clear plan to deal with the expiration of the CDC's ban, when up to 40 million people will be at risk of eviction, according to the Aspen Institute. 

Overnight, more than $70 billion will be owed in back rent and utilities, according to Moody´s Analytics Chief Economist Mark Zandi.

The health repercussions of homeless are horrifying - particularly amid the ongoing pandemic.  

A study by the Coaltion for the Homeless found that those living on the streets of New York City die of COVID at a rate 78 percent higher than the general population, according to the Coalition for the Homeless.

In Los Angeles, several members of the city council want the city to use the convention center as a homeless shelter. San Diego already did that - and now its convention center is suffering a COVID-19 outbreak, with 190 residents and staff testing positive.

Another homeless shelter in Chicago is reeling from an outbreak just as freezing temperatures fuel demand.

One resident of Phoenix's tent city told Reuters she feels helpless and doesn't see a light at the end of the tunnel.   

'I can't even get online' to apply for jobs because the libraries are closed,' the resident stated, adding that without a computer and an address she will not receive a stimulus check.

'I didn't think my life could get any worse,' she stated. 

The health repercussions of homeless are horrifying - particularly amid the ongoing pandemic. In Phoenix's tent city hundreds of homeless people are packed together