CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Members of the Champaign community who were surveyed for a recent research project viewed the Champaign Park District as a stopgap provider of “crisis response” services for people who are homeless.
The park district ― which oversees more than 62 parks and 14 recreational facilities ― collaborated on the project, which was led by University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign recreation, sport and tourism professor Nick Pitas.
Pitas said the park district officials were interested in obtaining feedback from people who were housed and those who were homeless on the district’s management of its facilities, users’ interactions with staff members and whether the district’s treatment of patrons was equitable, regardless of their housing status. The team held two focus groups with those who had housing and two focus groups with individuals who were homeless. Park district staff members also participated in the groups with those who had housing.
Based on the findings from the four focus groups, the researchers also conducted a communitywide survey that explored the general public’s overall attitudes toward people who were homeless and their presence and activities in the parks and other public spaces managed by the park district.
“We were interested in figuring out people’s views on the park district’s current role in responding to homelessness, and what they saw as its ideal role,” Pitas said. “And that was something that the Champaign Park District really wanted to understand ― how do the various constituent groups in the community see this issue and what do they want them to do about it.”
Published in the journal Landscape and Urban Planning, the paper was co-written by U. of I. graduate student Zack Russell; Jeff Rose, a professor of parks, recreation and tourism at the University of Utah; and Lauren Mullenbach, then a faculty member at the University of Oklahoma who is currently the research program manager for the Michigan Sea Grant at the University of Michigan.
Like many communities across the country, Champaign has seen an uptick in the number of people who are homeless, although the population seems to fluctuate seasonally and in response to other societal factors, Pitas said.
According to the Point-in-Time count conducted in January 2024 ― the most recent data currently available ― the estimated number of individuals who were homeless in the city of Champaign was about 279, an increase of 64 people from the prior year. The annual tally is conducted by the Champaign County Continuum of Service Providers to the Homeless.
Nationally, parks and recreation departments’ approaches to their patrons who are homeless vary dramatically from punitive measures “intended to surveil, constrain, exclude and persecute them” to “more compassionate, ‘kinder and gentler’ responses intended to care for, rehabilitate, civilize and support them,” Pitas, Rose, Mullenbach and U. of I. graduate student Aaron Hoyle-Katz wrote in a paper published in the Journal of Park and Recreation and Administration.
More than half of the 200 housed people the team surveyed in Champaign held negative views of people experiencing homelessness, while 28% of the respondents had positive views and 21% were neutral.
Respondents were asked how often they had observed park visitors they believed to be homeless engaging in activities such as socializing, sleeping or camping in parks; consuming alcohol or other substances; littering; or damaging park amenities. Published in the journal Society and Natural Resources, that study was co-written by Pitas, Russell, Mullenbach and Rose.
Many of those surveyed viewed the homeless as legitimate park users and supported their rights to use parks and other public facilities in various ways that aligned with the norms and legal standards of acceptable behavior for these spaces, such as resting or participating in recreational activities.
“People who had a more negative attitude toward those who were homeless were more focused on enforcement and a limited role for the park district, with the police enforcing regulations and taking care of those behaviors or activities that respondents saw as problematic,” Pitas said.
However, respondents with positive attitudes toward unhoused people believed that the ideal approach for the park district should be compassionate and service oriented, with social services responding to complaints of people sleeping in parks or consuming alcohol or other substances.
“It is worth noting, though, that even those with positive attitudes toward people who were homeless supported a law enforcement response when someone was damaging park amenities ― which a number of the respondents reported on the surveys,” Pitas said.
While park district employees said that their current role with regard to homelessness was primarily reactive ― involving enforcement of rules and regulations, public education about homelessness and maintenance of park resources and visitor experiences, they envisioned their ideal role as a proactive approach that directly addressed homelessness in some way.
However, neither the homeless nor the housed user group was in favor of that approach, as they felt it would be outside the park district’s mission. Individuals who were homeless suggested that it would be helpful for employees to be more visible in the parks and other public spaces to help connect people in need with local social service agencies.
Those study participants who were homeless said that, ideally, they wanted to be treated like other members of the public who used the community’s parks and other facilities ― and sometimes that meant being left alone. They said that conflicts with other park users increased whenever they slept in the parks or engaged in activities that they believed other visitors were able to do without repercussions, such as consume alcohol or cannabis. When such conflicts arose, individuals who were homeless felt discriminated against and that they were being treated unfairly.
However, these users said that their interactions with park district staff members were generally positive and demonstrated concern for their welfare.
“One of the things that the park district staff does and unhoused people thought was really important was just having a casual conversation, saying hello and developing the type of friendly interaction that you would see between anybody and a park agency staff member,” Pitas said.
“Our results emphasize the importance of cultivating a sense of normalcy, long-term relationship building and affirming the humanity of people experiencing homelessness,” the team wrote. They hypothesized that this type of approach might ameliorate some of the negative attitudes and biases that some individuals harbor toward those who are homeless and could bolster perceptions that all people are valid users of public parks and recreational facilities, regardless of their housing status.
“The unhoused folks that we talked to mentioned that parks are important to everybody for different reasons,” Pitas said. “But one of the reasons that parks were so important to them was that in addition to being a space to hang out and socialize ― which they thought was very important ― these spaces were like their backyard, kitchen, dining room or general living area. And they really appreciated amenities such as water, shelters, electricity and charcoal grills for cooking.
“But more than anything else, they thought that year-round access to water would be really helpful. In the winter, the park district has to shut off the water so that the pipes do not freeze.”
Those who were homeless particularly appreciated the park district’s free wireless internet service because “it was their connection to information, services and searching for a job,” Pitas said. “Both the Champaign and Urbana park districts go to great lengths to build positive relationships with everybody in the community, but in particular with unhoused folks. And one of the things that has been really great about this project is seeing the approach that both of those agencies take,” Pitas said.
The research was supported by a grant from the university’s Campus Research Board.
