Tenants of the Terminal

What is chock full of people coming and gong, equipped with plenty of clean bathrooms, chock full of culinary options, open 24/7, and nobody looks twice if you sleep in a chair? 

You guessed it... the airport! And it is for these reasons that airports are where many homeless people escape the streets and shelter life, as the AP reported today:

Clusters of homeless have long settled in terminals from Philadelphia to Chicago, ideal round-the-clock shelters for men and women displaced by cities trying to clean up their downtowns.

Federal authorities labeled this population a security threat in 2005, warning that terrorists might disguise themselves as homeless to do surveillance on their targets.

Hartsfield and other airports consider the homeless more nuisance than danger, just as they're seen in entertainment, shopping and transit districts everywhere. There has been no record of any security threat posed by the "handful" of blanket-covered vagrants sometimes found sleeping near ticket areas and other public spaces at Hartsfield, airport spokesman John Kennedy said.

Makes sense, doesn't it? In airports, homeless people can go undetected. They are a respite from the rules of the shelter and the dangers of the street. (Think it's not possible? Consider the true story behind the Tom Hanks movie, The Terminal, about a man who lived in an airport terminal for years.)

In fact, the airport homeless are so prevalent in some cities that authorities have considered bringing services to the terminal. Other cities have put a new twist on the street outreach team by regularly deploying airport outreach teams:

In the early '90s, Chicago's O'Hare International Airport thought about building a shelter on site. The same decade saw legislators in Hawaii weigh whether to set up mental health and alternative housing programs for the roughly 70 homeless bedding down at Honolulu International Airport every night.

At Cleveland Hopkins International Airport, the city and homeless advocates sent outreach teams into the airport almost every night for two months in 2006 after police found dozens of homeless sleeping in senstive parts of the airport, such as in doorways to secured areas, said Brian Davis, head of the Northeast Ohio Coalition for the Homeless.

The effort cleared all but the most stubborn handful of men and women, and most of them have stayed away. It took city funds and five outreach teams available for near nightly sweeps to make it happen though, almost unheard of resources even in the best of times.

The AP article doesn't hide it's frustration with the fact that homeless people are resistant to leave airports (the article is, after all, titled "Airports' homeless resist efforts to remove them"). So one has to wonder, has this author been living under a rock?

Has she not seen the numerous reports indicating we are in a recession, homelessness in on the rise, unemployment is rampant, and people are struggling? Affordable housing in short supply, shelters are full, and streets are cold and dangerous.

Where else should people stay while waiting for the economy to improve?