Estevan Park Project

Splinter Collective is a housing and community gathering space located in the Barrio Anita and Dunbar Spring neighborhoods in Tucson. It's also adjacent to Estevan Park, which in recent years has become a nexus for a local encampment for people experiencing homelessness and a symbol for Tucson's growing housing crisis. While the city has regularly responded to the challenges of managing the park with a top-down approach that manifests as regular sweeps of the encampment, Splinter Collective is trying out a different, bottom-up strategy: by envisioning what a community-based response might look like; by building relationships, offering humane services, conducting beautification projects in the park, and treating community members experiencing homelessness as fellow neighbors rather than trespassers.

Producer: Bryan Nelson
Editor: Diana Cadena
Videographers: Diana Cadena, Danny Sax, Nate Huffman, Bryan Nelson Tweet