The Star Trek Episode that Predicted the Future of Homelessness in the United States
Image; Edited Photo by Ivana Cajina on Unsplash with text and DS9 station image added.
City blocks that are filled with unhoused people. Laws against sleeping on the street. Intense militarization that keeps impoverished people in line so that they don't rebel.
Given the rise in unhoused people we have seen across the United States, this might sound like modern-day America, but I am describing the time-traveling two-parter Past Tense from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, in which Commander Benjamin 'Ben' Sisko (Avery Brooks) and his compatriots Doctor Julian Bashir (Alexander Siddig) and Lt. Cmdr. Jadzia Dax (Terry Farrell) find themselves in the "past"—what is to them 2024 America—only to be trapped in a concentration camp for the homeless.
At the time, it was written as a cautionary tale of what could happen if America let militarization and wealth inequality exacerbate, but as we have ignored these lessons, the 2024 of Star Trek and the 2024 of today are starting to look frighteningly similar.
This is America
When Past Tense was being made, this future was already much closer than some suspected. As the episodes were being filmed, showrunner Ira Steven Behr remarked on reading a story from the Los Angeles Times about how the city's then-Riordan Administration was planning to move the unhoused people of the day from the downtown to "an urban campground on a fenced lot in the city's core industrial area."
In many ways, this is unsurprising as the creators were not imagining the future as much as heightening the present reality. Writers Robert Hewitt Wolfe and Ira Steven Behr were allegedly inspired to co-write this episode based on their interactions with unhoused people. Wolfe telling Vox:
“My wife worked with homeless and mentally ill people as a psychotherapist. Ira [Steven Behr] said what convinced him to do the episodes was walking through Palisades Park in Santa Monica and seeing all the homeless people there. They’re still there. It hasn’t changed. We weren’t being predictive. We were just being observant.”
In Past Tense, it's this struggle with America's long criminalization of homelessness that takes center stage. Our leads — Benjamin Sisko and Julian Bashir — are immediately swept away to a "Sanctuary District" for allegedly sleeping on the street, which is illegal in this version of America. "There's a law against sleeping in the street," a cop (Dick Miller) instructs coldly before carting them off to a concentration camp.
Right away, there is an important similarity to current America that we need to point out. The legality of sleeping on the street may depend on where you live, but such a right is getting more tenuous every day. While the 2018 Ninth Circuit case Martin v. Boise ruled that a city cannot have an anti-camping ordinance without proper shelter for unhoused people—which is why many states and municipalities within that jurisdiction (e.g., California, Washington, Nevada, Oregon, etc.) have had much more visible homelessness in recent years— even these localities have tightened their restrictions.
For example, the city of Portland recently narrowed restrictions on street camping to make it, if not outright illegal, much, much more difficult. According to KPTV Portland, "…camping that blocks businesses, private property, or a public sidewalk will be banned." While violators will first be offered "diversion programs," mainly in an effort to avoid an ACLU-driven challenge under the pretext of Martin v. Boise, failure to comply will risk fines or jail time.
Theoretically, if the city does not have enough beds for the unhoused population, they can keep their camping area as long as it remains "tidy," but given the subjectivity of such a thing, an appeal to "sanitation" will undoubtedly be used to clear such camps in the future.
Other states outside the ninth circuit are under even fewer restrictions. Texas has banned camping on public lands. It's a felony to do so in Tennessee. Municipalities and states nationwide have passed or attempted to pass laws that limit camping and have also frequently cleared encampments.
However, the limited protections in Martin v. Boise seem to be at risk. The yet-to-be-determined Supreme Court case of City of Grants Pass, Oregon v. Johnson, would decide if governments could "arrest or fine people for sleeping outside when adequate shelter is not available." A ruling in the affirmative would mean that local localities can pass such restrictions with impunity—a likely scenario given the conservative nature of the current Supreme Court (something that may have already passed, depending on when you are reading this).
We are quickly heading to a reality in which what that guard said in the episode Present Tense is considered true: sleeping on the street will be illegal.
The racism and ableism of the housing system
Another similarity that should also be noted is the racism that Past Tense highlights within the homelessness system. It's not surprising that police officers sweep up the Black Ben Sisko and the Brown Julian Bashir, but the white-presenting Lt. Cmdr. Jadzia Dax avoids such scrutiny. This oversight metaphorically represents the racialized caste system so common in America. As Zack Handlen remarks in AV Club:
“…the ease with which Dax is able to get what she wants and move through the upper echelons of society, while Sisko and Bashir struggle to get breakfast, is telling.”
Although the data on the number of unhoused people in the United States is far less robust than many advocates would like, the information we do have reveals a racialized element. A Cornell-led study tracked the rate of homelessness from 2007 to 2017 and found that Black and Indigenous people were far more likely to experience homelessness. According to the National Alliance to End Homelessness:
“African Americans make up 13 percent of the general population but more than 40 percent of the homeless population. Similarly, American Indians/Alaska Natives, Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders, and people who identify as two or more races make up a disproportionate share of the homeless population.”
Likewise, there is also the fact that homelessness is impacted heavily by people's mental health. "Some of these people are mentally ill," Bashir remarks of the sanctuary residents, "They need major medical treatment."
Yet, as Commander Sisko notes, they often do not get it. Mental health has long been reported to impact housing (and vice versa). According to Deborah K. Padgett in the peer-reviewed BJPsych Bulletin, there is a dearth of psychiatrists who accept Medicaid (the most common type of insurance homeless people who have insurance are on), making "coverage virtually unattainable in many parts of the US."
Like the illegality of camping on the street, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine merely described the reality of the unhoused epidemic in America — one that has gotten worse over time.
The emergence of sanctuary districts
A significant difference in the episode is that although Captain Cisko talks about Sanctuary Districts being set up in every major city across America—i.e., designated zones where the government allows “non-criminal” unhoused people to live in squalid conditions —we are not presently there. We may give unhoused people few places to live, force them to clear out, and destroy their stuff when it becomes too "unsightly," but they are not yet confined to specific locations.
Although, don't be too optimistic; the tide has started to turn in that direction. Many cities are operating legal homeless camps, even as they ban outdoor camping in other areas, effectively making de facto sanctuary districts.
In Montana, where the state legislature is fiercely debating limiting homeless encampments, the county of Missoula has created a "Temporary Safe Outdoor Space," which aims to redirect residents to more permanent housing. The project’s aim is noble, but given the dual goal of making homelessness out of sight across the state, it’s easy to see a project like this get overburdened.
In Portland, Oregon, the city has pledged to build city-run homeless encampments while, as we have already established, limiting where "illegal" encampments can exist — something that threatens to overwhelm existing infrastructure.
In Austin, Texas, the state Department of Transportation has gifted a space off US Highway 183 to an emerging self-governing district called the Esperanza Community, which is already at capacity. It's, again, a wonderful idea that I am worried could be warped into something terrible, given that Texas has banned camping on public land.
In fact, an entire cottage industry has started to arise as businesses such as Sprung Structures market themselves to cities and states across the country to build such housing. A financially “viable alternative” considering that market limitations (i.e., landlords being unwilling to house people with challenging conditions at a reduced rate) make it difficult to find affordable housing in the "traditional" marketplace.
Commander Sisko may have been off about the exact date of Sanctuary District's ubiquity, but it's a future that very much seems on the horizon.
A grounded conclusion
The episode ends on a hopeful note—well, as hopeful as a dystopia can be, anyway.
In early September of this year, the Sanctuary residents riot over their mistreatment. They capture some guards, and the US government, like it so often does, overreacts, killing hundreds of unhoused people.
In the Star Trek universe, this inciting event allegedly led to a tide change in how America handles homelessness. "The riots will be one of the watershed events of the 21st century," Sisko monologues. "…Outrage over [the death of residents] will change public opinion about the sanctuaries. They'll be torn down. And the United States will finally start correcting the social problems it had struggled with for over 100 years."
It's difficult to tell if this prediction will come to pass. Science fiction is only a mirror of the present, not a crystal ball of the actual future. Sisko was talking about how the writers of the time believed we should solve this problem — a worthy lesson to consider.
"Eventually, people in this century will remember to care," Sisko says. I hope we have the courage to listen.