Restoring Waterways, But for Whom? Environmental Justice, Human Rights, and the Unhoused

Abstract

The restoration of waterways is increasingly understood as an endeavor that could (and should) be beneficial for both ecosystems and people. Researchers have already explored several ways that restoration can mediate in favor of environmental justice goals, while simultaneously acknowledging the dangers of green gentrification. This paper extends the inquiries about waterway restoration and environmental justice to include a focus on one of society’s most frequently marginalized groups, unhoused people. Working inductively, we conduct a scoping study that examines published studies, news stories, and examples from the field that explore the intersection among waterway restoration and environmental justice, in the context of the interests of unhoused people. We argue that further work on the topic is necessary, and it should include both systematic investigations as well as design guidance material; this exploration represents the first step in outlining the direction of that work. Follow-on studies will center on clarifying the social dynamics in play, including identifying contested policy narratives, describing the regulatory context of the existing cases, definition(s) of what constitutes unhoused/homeless, and what impacts they have on decision-making. The future research we anticipate will develop information and propose strategies that can be used by practitioners including planners and landscape architects, in the process of organizing project work, to help advance environmental justice and human rights goals.

1. Introduction

Waterway restoration projects as part of greenways and blueways can and should address issues of environmental (in)justice and equity [1,2]. Yet when it comes to one of society’s most frequently marginalized groups—the unhoused—there is a dearth of information about what is taking place at the water’s edge, raising questions about whether justice is being served in this important context. There may not be a simple answer: Changes in society, including contradictory currents in popular discourse, suggest that the outcomes may not be entirely positive or negative. Recent events have placed the topic of public space and unhoused people into the media spotlight, both in the US and beyond; both problems as well as policy innovations are being discussed in the media [3]. Reports show that the legal rights and support for the unhoused are being simultaneously both expanded and limited, and that multiple factors are shaping the outcomes in our more specific area of focus, waterway locations. On the one hand, highly publicized legal battles have upheld municipal policies that literally criminalize the act of being unhoused, suggesting that rights are being diminished and extinguished (e.g., the US Supreme Court case, Grants Pass v. Johnson, as discussed in Mitchell [4]). On the other hand, there is stronger advocacy for the unhoused, growing public support, and more funds for waterway restoration projects embracing justice [5,6], and these shifts suggest that inclusion and rights for the unhoused are also being supported and expanded. Because unhoused people are a marginalized group, and becoming more numerous, it makes sense to use the lens of environmental justice to help focus on how they are being addressed in the context of waterway restoration efforts, building upon our previous research work.

By design guidance, we mean the array of materials, such as textbooks, topical handbooks, and research studies, that help landscape architects in grappling with the design challenges presented by clients, and the range of ways they can engage with those challenges to plan and organize project work [7,8], including the ways that are both effective and mediate in favor of social justice. Handling projects involving the interests of unhoused people can also challenge a practitioner’s professional ethics [9], and for that reason, providing ways of addressing those specific challenges [10,11,12] will be important to future research.

This exploratory study reviews the relevant literature, to help situate our inquiries, and then examines several cases, to help show what is taking place on the ground and by the water. Next, we analyze the dynamics observed in several locations and discuss the factors to be examined in future studies. The goal is not an aggregate conclusion about whether things are getting better or worse overall, but rather an unpacking of the array of elements that influence how the interests of unhoused people are being addressed in waterway restoration projects. Our formative study concludes with research recommendations in order to help guide future work on the processes of change that shape public spaces and waterways, and the opportunities they present for unhoused people.

2. Materials and Methods

The approach used in this scoping study is inductive, and it extends our earlier work on related themes and also draws inspiration from Julius Fabos’ encouragement to focus on greenways and blueways as a promising avenue to help heal the nature–society relationship. We have a social constructivist orientation to our work, and the core methods we use involve reviewing the scholarly literature and analyzing case studies. As stated by Lenzholzer et al. [13]: “social constructivism has a clear human-focused culturally grounded perspective in which attitudes, beliefs, interaction and experiences are the subjects of research. This knowledge claim is common within the arts, humanities and social sciences. The aim in social constructivist research often is the generation of theory or meaning. The researcher’s intent is not to find generalizable and quantitative knowledge, but rather to ‘make sense’ of situations in a qualitative and contextual way. The methods used generally are open-ended, inductive and interpretive. The research directly or indirectly involves the researcher because their interpretations are at the core of research evaluation. Here, the main criteria are authenticity, originality, credibility, transferability and dependability [13].

2.1. Understanding Manifestations of Social and Environmental Justice

Our method involves contextualizing and situating the key research interests already discussed in the Introduction, and appreciating how that constitutes a method requires explanation that helps a reader appreciate what we present here. Several threads of interest and influence have shaped our method. Foremost, Fabos’ work advocates for better planning effort with greenways and blueways, specifically because of their capacity to realize sustainable urban development and counter ecological fragmentation [14]. These purposefully designed spaces, usually public, are typically imagined by landscape architects and planners, and over the decades, the professor has done an excellent job of placing practitioners in conversation with academics at the Fabos Conferences that are the topic of this volume. We acknowledge that waterway restorations get initiated for different reasons, sometimes to help with hydrological and drainage issues, other times to address ecosystem problems, and from time to time, the desire to enhance greenways and blueways; sometimes all three reasons converge. The momentum of the greenways and blueways movement that Fabos ushered in turns in part on what Wei-Ning Xiang has called his “socratic midwifery,” and in keeping with that spirit and ecopracticology [15], our study explores questions about the situations of waterways, environmental justice, and unhoused people. Though it came as a surprise to us, the process of crafting the arguments in this manuscript continued the socratic dynamic the conference initiated: Even as we reviewed and edited our work, feedback from reviewers raised questions that encouraged us to clarify our argument, and this helped us to better understand exactly what we are asserting, and how we are doing so. The socratic process encouraged by these conferences has multiple facets, even influencing the selection of the methods used. This perspective was well captured by Swaffield and Deming in their comprehensive article on research strategies: “the knowledge base of a professional discipline is this a continual process of transformation, as the tacit knowledge of a professional practice is encoded in scholarly work, and as research investigations and theoretical speculations are tested against practice,” ([16], p. 44). This investigation continues that momentum, focusing on key dynamics of urban life in the 21st century: growing support and enthusiasm for greenways and blueways, as well as an increasing recognition of the presence of unhoused people.

Waterway restoration projects improve the nature–society relationship in myriad ways: Riparian zone cleanups can address long-standing contamination and harms, and enhancing green space and blue space frequently helps address legacy contaminants and pre-existing social and environmental injustices [1,17]. The term ‘social justice’ is commonly used by scholars to refer to the aggregate sense of fairness in a society, and specifically, “…justice is a central moral standard that requires the fair and impartial treatment of all. Social justice differs from other realms of justice, such as that relating to the application of law, being centrally concerned with the fairness of a social order and its attendant distributions of rewards and costs. Determining how fairness is to be assessed, and according to which principle, is an issue of fierce debate. Different criteria, including equality, entitlement, recognition or need, yield different principles of justice,” ([18], p. 713).

However, waterway restorations are also problematic in that marginalized communities may not benefit from improvements in an equitable way; furthermore, the improvements they engender can sometimes produce ‘green gentrification,’ exacerbating environmental justice issues [1,19,20]. Using the environmental justice principles as a set of guidelines, it is possible to identify several ways that waterway restoration can simultaneously help achieve environmental justice goals [20]. For example, Principle 1 addresses the right to “…be free from ecological destruction;” Principle 5 affirms the fundamental right to “…environmental self-determination of all peoples;” and Principle 12 refers to the need for policies “…to clean up and rebuild our cities and rural areas in balance with nature…” [20]; the author is building upon the Environmental Justice Principles first published in 1991 [21]. Building on this analytical approach, future work could list all of the ways that principles of environmental justice relate to waterway restorations, specifically in connection with unhoused people; also important to include, in connection with environmental justice, are human rights to housing and to sanitation, as discussed below.

Waterway restoration has become more central in contemporary urban and environmental policies due to both societal and legal factors [22]. Most cities are co-located with waterways of some kind (streams, rivers, coastal waterfronts, etc.), and people increasingly prefer urban environments that include greenways and blueways [23]. Because older ideas about urbanization have dominated thinking about urban form, people often assume that cities are the antithesis of nature, yet technological change and environmental advocacy have shown that alternatives are possible, and that renaturalization projects can be successful [24]. Legal factors are significant, too: Laws and policies have changed to encourage more responsibility, on the part of both governments as well as private entities, to do less harm, and to create more benefits, and environmental policies can be found at all levels of government from local to national, globally; similarly, land use law has also evolved help foster more pro-environmental practices [25]. However, in older cities, disinvestment and economic change often act in ways that limit progress toward greener infrastructure and more sustainable environments; nonetheless, there are programs and policies that direct both private and public funds toward waterway restoration, in specific conditions and contexts [26].

2.2. Exploring Issues Facing Unhoused People

The environmental justice lens is an analytical tool that we are using to focus on a specific set of people who are marginalized, usually referred to as homeless or unhoused. The term ‘unhoused’ is used here to refer to people who do not have ongoing and secure access to a safe place to sleep and carry out the activities of daily living; several related terms, including ‘houseless’ and ‘experiencing homelessness,’ are similar yet vary in meaning and connotation (Figure 1). Note that many authors have discussed these terms in depth [27,28,29] and no brief summary can capture the nuance they bring to the language used in discussing homelessness. Specificity and context matter, too: One term we heard from park managers in the western US is ‘nonrecreational camping’ [29]. Since no single word or term is ‘most correct,’ they will be used flexibly in this article: We note that we find that the term ‘unhoused’ is somewhat preferable to ‘homeless’ because it helps to take the focus away from the individual alone and underscores the connection with the larger society that remains accountable for socioeconomic issues.

This study constitutes a first exploration of how restored waterway projects are engaging with an important part of society, unhoused people. From our research on the subject, it has not been addressed by other researchers; using databases for searching scholarly literature, including articles and books, we found tangential explorations, but no focused, in-depth scholarly studies. While plenty of research to date has explored waterway restoration and environmental justice overall, we found nothing centered on unhoused people in that connection; the databases consulted includes Scopus, Google scholar, and ProQuest. The data gaps we identified helped underscore the need for this scoping study; the knowledge gaps that we plan to explore lie at the margins of the existing literature, and they center on the relationships among unhoused people and blueways, and this includes information on use patterns as well as the framing of the problem, and the range of policy narratives about it [31]. Addressing these gaps will bring forward more clarity about the contested nature of these public spaces, the use value of waterways, and the legitimacy of unhoused people existing in public space, among other things.

2.3. Identifying Research Gaps

Meanwhile, there is a large body of literature on unhoused people overall, produced by researchers working in the fields of sociology, human rights, and public policy, among others, and there is also an extensive body of literature addressing unhoused people and public parks. While these studies focus on one part of the relationship among unhoused people and waterway restorations, none are comprehensive and focused. Some excellent work is site-specific: For example, Carlos Balsas’ work, focused on homeless and revitalization, helps illustrate how efforts to work toward a ‘just city’ in one location (Phoenix) might move forward [32]. A thematic review of four dozen (48) peer-reviewed articles on unhoused people in public space identified the following: issue framing disparities among policy analysts; discussions of conflict among users and re-appropriation; and perceptions of health, safety, and sanitation concerns, among other things. Again, none focused specifically on blueways or waterway restorations. It is worth noting that many authors have argued that the questions about how unhoused people are treated in society is already too large for the patchwork of state and local policies, and for NGOs funded only by charitable donations; we agree with those who have asserted that new paradigms are needed, and the engagement of multiple parts of society will be necessary [33,34].

In our effort to start unpacking the relationship(s) among waterway restorations and unhoused people, using the framework of environmental justice, we identified two ways that human rights come into play. One concerns the right to housing: The United Nations Human Rights Committee (UNHRC) has recognized that homelessness itself violates human rights, and it has condemned the criminalization of homelessness and poverty and urge state action to address it [34,35]. The work of the UNHRC is important because it is coming from an authoritative organization, and it speaks to philosophical issues about justice. The second way human rights come into play is in connection with health and waterways, and this is evident from the opening statement of the United Nations Human Rights to Water and Sanitation:

“The right to sanitation entitles everyone to have physical and affordable access to sanitation and all spheres of life that is safe, hygienic, secure, and socially and culturally acceptable, and that provides privacy and ensures dignity. Physical presence is not the same as access,”.

[36]

Thus, there are several reasons to keep investigating the intersections among unhoused people and waterway restoration. A nongovernmental organization investigated the way that sanitation agencies (in the US) have been involved in responding to homeless people and found that most involvement had centered on simply removing encampments, rather than forward-thinking action regarding sanitation [37]. An essay on sanitation needs for unhoused people included detailed references to unmet needs for sanitation including water for hygiene [38]. Still, it did not engage the specifics of waterway locations, or waterway restorations that may be taking place in areas where there are significant numbers of unhoused people.

While scholarly studies on our topic of waterway restorations, human rights, and the unhoused have yet to be realized, we did find news stories exploring some related questions. For example, journalists have started conversations with unhoused people in a riverfront area in Holland, Michigan, asking about why they chose that location, and the answers included “here, there’s space—and people leave us alone,” [39]. And in a park next to Lake Michigan, interviewers asked people why they liked being there, and the responses included “I like to look at the water in the rocks and feel that cool breeze;” “peace of mind” of looking at the water; and “it is powerful—don’t you see, it’s like it’s talking to you sometimes!” [40]. The significance of the water was key, and the pleasures and values that people referenced, including spiritual dimensions, were not dissimilar to those of other visitors. However, some more specific values that are mentioned in connection with people who are unhoused include access to water for cooking and for hygiene, and a feeling of safety from being out of shelters and away from urban areas [41]. Taken together, the observations from individuals suggest empirical work should be an element of research going forward, to help better understand the lived experience of unhoused people, and also to help identify methods for developing design guidance. With some perspective on the published literature—as well as the gaps—we outline the approach of our scoping study.

2.4. Addressing Research Gaps

The study was developed as an extension of earlier work on environmental justice and stream restoration, with a targeted focus on the unhoused (i.e., people experiencing homelessness). The first method we used in designing our inductively oriented approach was exploring the background materials and searching for peer-reviewed scholarly literature reviews, as discussed above. Next is the empirical portion: We identified a set of nearly a dozen examples (11 total) where the concerns of unhoused people made the news in connection with a restored waterway or were brought to our attention by an interested party. These cases were listed for further consideration, first, searching for sites discussed in the peer-reviewed literature, and then expanded to include other sources, specifically news media, the popular press, social media, and the grey literature. Personal contacts and knowledge networks also helped inform our awareness of potential cases that could be considered. As practitioners and social scientists examining the human dimensions of these processes, we have established networks which include the engineers, hydrologists, planners, landscape architects, and stream ecologists who carry out key portions of the projects. Because of this, even social media, such as LinkedIn and Instagram posts, helped to make us aware of potential cases to examine.

We considered many examples that could be used for discussion in this scoping paper, and in order to be included, the cases needed to show something notable taking place, relative to our topical focus. It was important that the case have a sufficient amount of source material to allow us to obtain a clear picture of what had transpired at that location. Of the 11 cases that we considered for inclusion in this paper, we concluded that we needed to have readily available and published information each of them, ideally work that was published in peer-reviewed journals, in the press, or on websites of authoritative sources (e.g., governmental and/or nongovernmental organizations). This decision was made to help ensure that the information presented in this paper could be independently verified. Not included here were cases that we heard about primarily by word of mouth, for example, from practitioners who shared about project work that they were completing, or from unhoused people talking about difficulties they were facing. As a limitation, we note our process for identifying case studies was restricted to English language source materials; we also note that this scoping study uses secondary source materials, since we do not yet have resources for primary source data collection using field investigations.

3. Results

The case studies we discuss below illustrate the range of issues that are significant for further consideration in the next phase of research on the intersection of waterway restorations and people experiencing homelessness. We discuss specifics on three cases below.

3.1. Cairns Esplanade, Queensland, Australia

A restoration project in the historic harbor in Cairns, Australia, helps illustrate the power of planning decisions relative to unhoused people and waterfront restorations. In this tourism-oriented city, a foreshore restoration and development project were completed in 2004, and this project incorporated inclusive design principles, ensuring continued access for all, including unhoused people. While not explicitly targeted by the decision-makers (we found no declarations of intent on the part of the planners), today it is apparent that people without typical housing accommodations are, nonetheless, using the facilities there on a regular basis. This case provides an alternative model where public space design does not default to exclusionary measures but, rather, supports coexistence.

The Cairns Esplanade is a public park featuring a ‘renaturalized’ nearshore area (Figure 2), complete with enhancements including landscaping, playground equipment, barbecues, bathrooms, and potable water [42]. The city of Cairns is home to approximately 180,000 residents, and grew in connection with the shipping industry, during the 18th and 19th centuries, followed by tourism in the 20th and 21st centuries; today, Cairns is the launching point for many Barrier Reef excursions.

Cairns is located in Queensland, Australia’s most decentralized state, with multiple regional economies and remote communities, and this creates unique challenges for delivering housing and homelessness services. In the US, the governmental definitions of homelessness are fairly narrow, and typically turn on simply not having shelter. In Australia, the definition of homelessness is broader, due to its emphasis on the adequacy, security, and control over living spaces [43]. Approximately 8% of the residents in the area identify as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders [44]. It is also true that standard definitions of homelessness can potentially classify Indigenous people as homeless when they are not, in terms of their own cultural standards, practices, and identities [45]. Because their cultural practices may involve moving between homelands and urban centers, for ceremonies, family responsibilities, and seasonal factors, concepts of being unhoused may be different than for others [45]. However, “…in contemporary social policy…Indigenous mobility is primarily perceived as a problematic aspect of Indigenous culture…this creates difficulties for service providers and contributes to adverse outcomes within Indigenous populations,” [46]. Public art in the Esplanade area includes references to creatures and designs that are part of Oceania and celebrate the cultures of Aboriginal and Torres Island Strait peoples.

By providing access to classic waterway amenities including both the active (swimming) and passive (viewsheds) opportunities, this waterfront improvement is delivering on the potential of its ideal location. With ways to cook food, potable water, and more, there is a sense of support for people’s valued activities. The public spaces of the Cairns Esplanade continue to welcome people from all walks of life, functioning in ways that show how a waterway restoration project can work to maintain and even expand access.

3.2. CRAB Park, Vancouver, British Columbia (BC), Canada

In Vancouver, BC, a park established explicitly to expand public access to the waterfront has been the subject of considerable struggle and litigation, and this case highlights the role of resistance and community-led efforts reshaping an initiative for more equitable access. CRAB Park was originally created through advocacy efforts from Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside (DTES) residents for much-needed greenspace, and it later became a refuge for unhoused individuals [47]. When encampments formed, city authorities attempted repeated evictions. However, legal resistance and community activism led to a landmark BC Supreme Court ruling (Bamberger v. Vancouver), which found that banning overnight shelter violated constitutional rights. Despite the ultimate result, which was negative for the unhoused people, since they were ordered to leave, this case shows how multiple struggles were involved and underscores the ways that legal advocacy and grassroots activism can push back against exclusionary policies.

Portside Park, as it is officially named, is located in an urban harbor at the mouth of the Columbia River (Figure 3), and it was first envisioned and lobbied for in 1987 by a local neighborhood committee that called itself ‘Create a Real Available Beach,’ or CRAB, in response to the lack of available beach for their neighborhood. CRAB Park is on Federal Crown lands but is managed by the Vancouver Board of Parks and Recreation (VBPR). As in many cities, Vancouver has had a growing homeless population, especially since the 1980s. Many unhoused people have stayed in parks in downtown Vancouver: From 2018 to 2020, there was a tent city housing hundreds at Oppenheimer Park, and it was contested by neighbors who considered it disturbing. In that connection, the VBPR passed a new bylaw in 2020, allowing overnight tenting for people experiencing homelessness, but also specifying that tents needed to be removed by 8 am, with no campfires or propane stoves allowed. In 2020, the Port Authority initiated an injunction to stop resident encampments from using the Port Authority parking lots. The argument was that the private property of the parking lot was not intended for public use, and violated regulations in that people were building structures, starting fires, and engaging in unhygienic activities. The order was upheld by the court in 2020 as Vancouver Fraser Port Authority vs. Brett, and the homeless residents complied with it by moving to the public portion of CRAB Park ([31], p. 11).

Legal scholar Flynn explained the legal background for the subsequent litigation affecting the CRAB homeless residents with reference to both national and international. Canada’s National Housing Strategy Act of 2019 Section 4 recognizes the right of adequate housing as a fundamental human right in international law. The international law in question is the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights or ICESCR ([31], p. 9). The eviction order was brought again but had a different legal strategy prior to the 2022 BC Supreme Court Decision. No judicial review regarding tent encampments is based on whether a municipality enacted a law that was constitutional. In 2022, the CRAB Park encampment residents brought a judicial review of two orders issued by the General Manager of the VBPR which (1) prohibited any overnight tents in CRAB Park, and (2) closed a portion of CRAB Park to address damage caused by encampment. The BC Supreme Court found in Bamberger vs. Vancouver (Board of Parks & Recreation) that these two orders were unreasonable and unfair ([47] pp. 12–13).

The CRAB Park residents showed that being near the Downtown Eastside is essential because of access to services and amenities. The GM’s orders must satisfy that closing the last major park in or near an area for overnight shelter would not adversely affect the ability of encampment residents to access services and other facilities needed to survive (Bamberger vs. Vancouver (Board of Parks and Recreation 2022 paragraph 147) and Flynn ([47] pp. 13–14). Flynn argues that the Bamberger decision stipulates that administrative decision-making must go beyond ensuring available indoor space available for unhoused persons is supported by appropriate shelter space, and not to rely on information from other agencies about such space. Flynn infers that the Bamberger case sets a standard throughout Canada for such homeless encampment cases. Flynn uses the term ‘encampment residents’ in order to “… highlight that the encampment residents do not have any form of legal title or rights to the areas they inhabit,” and furthermore she notes that “…in the Canadian context, it is also critical to acknowledge that the rise of homelessness and encampments are grounded in historical disposition of Indigenous lands” ([47], p. 23).

After the Bamberger decision, the remaining CRAB encampment residents were greatly relieved, but their relief was short-lived. In December of 2023, the encampment residents, aided by local activists, filed a complaint with the BC Human Rights Tribunal, alleging that the City of Vancouver and Park Board discriminated against them by not providing “basic survival services,” ([47], p. 23). The key issues were that those living in the 50-some tents did not have electricity, and that the nearest water source was 225 steps away. They also alleged discrimination based on Indigenous identity and physical and mental disability. During March of 2024, the Park administration ordered a cleanup of the CRAB Park encampment, which officials called necessary because of concerns about garbage, feces, needles, and propane tanks, among other things. Meanwhile, the Park administration, in conjunction with the City of Vancouver agencies, had been trying to find alternative housing for the remaining encampment residents. However, many of these remaining homeless people were concerned about the conditions in the alternative housing arrangements (shelters), relative to personal safety, living conditions, policies for animals, and more; the varied opinions by individuals here suggest the importance of developing design guidance strategies that draw on people’s lived experiences. In November of 2024, the Park Board moved to close CRAB Park to homeless encampments, and to return the park to general use. The Park Board stated that there was “ongoing non-compliance” at the encampment, health and safety risk, and an “unsustainable” strain on the Park Boards resources [48]. The National Protocol on Encampments stresses the requirements for meaningful engagement and effective participation, for recognizing residents as rights holders and prohibiting forced eviction [49]. The remaining encampment residents were moved out of the CRAB Park encampment on November 7th or shortly thereafter [50].

The CRAB Park case, although disappointing in outcome, is interesting in terms of the claims made, as well as its overall complexity in terms of key actors, forums of contestation, gains made along the way, and the issues raised such as access to key services and the availability of alternative shelter. The legal issues raised are also very relevant and include the basic human rights of the homeless, discrimination, access to water and sanitation, and the rights of participation in decision processes affecting their fate.

3.3. Russian River, Sonoma County, California, USA

The Russian River case centers on encampments set up by unhoused people in a waterfront area in Sonoma County, California. It helps illustrate how a set of organizations can cooperate to advance shared interests and work in innovative ways (Figure 4).

In many areas of the US and beyond, Riverkeeper organizations exist as nonprofits that often call themselves “the voice of the river” and represent the interests of the residents in the watershed. The mission statement of this organization declares “Russian Riverkeeper protects and restores our watershed environment for the benefit of current and future generations,” [51]. The 110-mile-long Russian River runs from its headwaters in northcentral California to the oceanfront town of Jenner, where it discharges into the Pacific Ocean. The river’s watershed comprises 1485 square miles of land, mostly in the Mendocino and Sonoma Counties. The river provides water supply to more than 700,000 people; there are hundreds of spots for recreation along the river, and water-based activities include swimming, boating, and tubing. Waterfront public park areas are plentiful in the whole area.

In 2018, at the time when the project was first developed, one of the most significant problems for the river had been trash: Each week, hundreds of pounds of litter would find its way into the waters, and in the course of troubleshooting a problem, Riverkeeper staff became aware of the unhoused people who were living near the water’s edge on publicly owned properties. Rather than adopting a dismissive perspective toward the riparian residents or trying to enroll authorities in the elimination of the encampment, Riverkeeper initiated a program to help provide the residents with access to trash management infrastructure and support. Riverkeeper secured a grant from County government to develop and run the program, and it was created in conversation with the community members themselves [52]. In addition, Riverkeeper’s approach built on concepts of trauma-informed collaboration [53], acknowledging the fact that life for those experiencing homelessness, everyday life involves stress at a crisis level of intensity. The Russian River case shows the power that can be mobilized when problem definition stays flexible and new alliances are allowed to emerge. One journalist reported on the story with the remark, “the people who Guerneville residents blame for trashing the Russian River are helping to clean it up,” [54]. The collaboration among government and nongovernmental organizations has been beneficial, and the shared workdays among housed and unhoused people has a positive effect on the community overall and the development of relationships of respect among residents.

4. Discussion

Our study, including the literature reviewed and case studies presented, works in two ways. One is to help identify some of the dynamics that have been present in the interactions among unhoused people and restored waterways, in other words, what is been happening, who are the key actors, and what factors have influenced and shaped how things have unfolded (

Table 1. Case studies of intersections among watershed restorations and unhoused people.

Location	Site	Key Insights
Cairns, Australia	Esplanade and foreshore restoration	Design has renaturalized nearshore with swimming options Amenities include drinking water, sinks, toilets, and grills for barbecuing Site remains free of hostile architecture features; unhoused people are making use of the site Laws (in Australia and Queensland) define homelessness in specific ways; policies display some awareness of concepts of mobility relative to cultures of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people
Vancouver, Canada	CRAB Park	Site specifically designed to expand waterway and greenway access among underserved populations; access was achieved and then lost Contested issues involving litigation can involve battles about scale and scope of conflict, showing that even jurisdictional elements can change outcomes Tracking the dynamics of change is complex; detail across multiple sectors of society is indispensable Narrative and policy analysis is necessary to build nuanced understanding of issues associated with perceptions, values, and policy debates regarding unhoused people; user consultations are necessary
Russian River, California, US	Waterfront sites, Sonoma County	Organizations restore and maintain waterways in diverse ways; simple and inexpensive methods can work Approaching work with waterways with unhoused people using the lens of trauma-informed collaboration is innovative Definition of ‘site’ can be understood flexibly and not necessarily fixed spatially; encampments may shift and relocate Organizations carrying out waterway improvements can include small nonprofits; researchers must cast a wide net to avoid overlooking them

). Our scoping study also works to help clarify how follow-on work should be structured, to help make sure that it will be useful for both practitioners and academics.

Several things emerge from our analysis. As shown in Table 1, the cases presented here highlight aspects to be considered in empirical work. As noted earlier in the discussion of the principles of environmental justice, and whether they are being realized or not in any given waterway location, empirical work is required that examines whether unhoused people’s rights to self-determination and access are being realized or not. Looking toward future studies, one thing that is indispensable is to consider how the narrative around restoration influences policies and outcomes. By ‘narrative,’ we mean the ways that the issues are framed in the media, and also the overarching stories that they are associated with. The importance of attending to narrative and framing in policy analysis is well articulated by authors including Eugene Bardach [55] and George Lakoff [56], among others. Treating what is going on at any given site as a ‘policy issue’ helps animate an analytical framework that includes everything from governmental regulations to key actors to storytelling practices, all important pieces of a puzzle when public places are being contested. Our case studies included complexity in the range of ways they were treated by journalists, underscoring the need for attention to the dimensions of narrative and issue framing.

Another thing to address going forward is the definitions used for two key terms, the first of which is ‘restoration.’ Deciding what does and does not constitute a waterway restoration (or a blueways project) will set the outer range on what gets considered. We do not want to restrict ourselves to the obvious candidates, those projects where there is heavy engineering, planning studies, and extensive capital investment, because doing that would risk missing other important forms of waterway restoration. In fact, the history of stream restoration in the United States leads back to visionaries in Northern California who were focused on enacting visions of what could be along the water’s edge that were regenerative [57]. This connects to the concept of “lifeworlds,” especially as it has been used by geographer and landscape architect James Wescoat in connection with the ways that people inhabit places near rivers [58,59]. The second key term to pay attention to regarding definitions is the word ‘unhoused,’ as discussed above in the literature review. These terms matter because they will shape the scope of what is included, which affects the cases considered, and this, in turn, influences the conclusions we are able to make and the explanatory power of our findings.

Outlining the legal and regulatory context within which the case studies are situated will be essential to planning future work. Specifically, the working definitions of what constitutes unhoused, the laws and policies are associated with it, and what impacts they have on decision-making should be carefully considered. In his book Mean Streets, Don Mitchell points out that homelessness is nothing new but, rather, an inherent feature in any capitalist society [60]. While that insight might lead practitioners to despair, it could also help animate the development of better policies that lead toward more just and equitable outcomes that help expand human rights. Also critical will be acknowledging that design processes vary tremendously, and in some cases, they may be non-existent or entirely ad hoc. However, there might even be processes that are specifically oriented toward environmental justice, alternatives to defensiveness and hostility [61,62], and, especially, the inclusion of unhoused people [28].

5. Conclusions

The study we presented makes two central contributions: First, it helps outline the social and institutional dynamics that have been present in the interactions among unhoused people and restored waterways. This issue framing helps show how cultural and legal factors (such as varying definitions of unhoused) are shaping what takes place on the ground. Also notable is how dynamic these interactions can be, as people relocate, policies shift, and judgments are issued. Appreciating these dynamics also reinforces the need to be forthcoming about the extent to which issues involving unhoused people are contested and politicized, by definition, and to acknowledge the challenges this may present for audiences that might prefer technocratic studies with proscriptive findings.

Second, this exploration provides a set of factors and variables that can be examined in larger studies going forward. It is essential to have a good sense of what to focus on in planning future research, and several things gleaned from the literature reviewed and the case studies feed back into the research strategies and methods. It appears that the disciplinary lens of additional fields, including policy studies, social work, and anthropology, among others, will be useful in making more sense of the interactions among unhoused people and waterway restorations, in light of social and environmental justice.

Future work on this topic should include both systematic investigations (for scholarly analysis) as well as design guidance (for use by practitioners), and this represents a first step in those directions. An important strategy going forward will be using research methods that engage unhoused people directly, including, for example, photovoice and participatory action research [63,64,65].

Essential to that work will be outlining the legal and regulatory context of the existing cases, specifically, working definitions of what constitutes unhoused/homeless, and what laws and policies are associated with that, and what impacts they have on decision-making. The dominant (and emerging) narratives about unhoused people, and the political dynamics around contested spaces, are important to track. Also critical are factors relating to the material dimensions of waterways and blueways: clarifying what constitutes a restoration and the role of design, appreciating issue framing and how to set the stage for analyzing specific parts of the large number of places where intersections among people and places are unfolding in changing ways. Placing the relationships of unhoused people and waterways in context with existing theoretical frameworks for understanding change in the built environment, including posthumanism, political ecology, and capitalist urbanism, will be a critical area of future research.