Yale student group apologizes for committing ‘violence’ after cleaning up homeless encampment

A Yale University orientation group is apologizing for committing “violence” after some of its members helped clean up a homeless encampment that had been evacuated by police last week.

Yale’s FOCUS program is one of five orientation groups for incoming first-year students, focusing on community service around the university. The program partners with the New Haven Department of Parks and Trees, which had a group of students help clean up a homeless encampment that city police had cleared last week.

Student leaders at FOCUS were outraged when they learned of the move, stating that the students had committed “theft” against “unhoused people.”

“This sort of violence — ‘cleaning up after the cops’ and theft of unhoused people’s homes and belongings — is antithetical to the values of FOCUS,” members of the FOCUS program told the Yale Daily News in a statement.

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“The fact that FOCUS members were told to participate in this violence speaks to the gap between the ideals we hold and the work we actually do. One thing is clear: FOCUS needs to change.”

The group ended its partnership with the Department of Parks and Trees following the incident, emphasizing to its members that the homeless encampment was a “home and a survival tool, not a public nuisance,” according to YDN.

Liberal cities across the U.S. have long resisted pushes to clear homeless encampments. Nevertheless, many have been forced to take action as the situation spiraled out of control due to a lack of enforcement.

“I would be an idiot to sit here and tell you that things are better today than they were five years ago with regard to homelessness,” Portland, Oregon Mayor Ted Wheeler said earlier this year. “People in this city aren’t stupid. They can open their eyes.”