Close to 600,000 people in the U.S. don't have a home of their own.

That's according to 2022 data from the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Forty percent are living outdoors or in buildings not met for human habitation, like Brooke Carol

in Austin, Texas.

I live at Repulitz Square.

It's a park in downtown Austin that we live in, tents, and it's really miserable.

I deal with situations and get off the streets.

And more people without homes are living on the streets rather than in shelters, often

in tenant campments.

As more tent communities pop up in cities across the U.S., officials often respond by clearing

them out.

Brooke Carol says he lived in a place that was swept away by police and other public

workers.

They took my stuff away when I went there and they confiscated everything I had.

I had to go to make zate church and get another tent and sleep back.

And so pretty much it's all I got.

People living on the street are 10 times more likely to be stopped by the police and

9 times more likely to spend a night in jail than people living in shelters.

It's according to a 2019 study by the California Policy Lab.

In some cities and states have explicitly made public camping illegal.

Voters in Austin, Texas approved a camping ban in 2021.

Cleo Patrisek is part of Save Austin Now, which led the successful city ballot measure.

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