Situated in its current location on Capitol Hill, Tent City III (TC3) has a certain amount of privacy. There isn’t heavy pedestrian traffic, and people can’t see into the community from nearby buildings. However, if TC3 were to relocate to the UW campus, which is a possibility for next year, this setup could change drastically.

“It’s the rat in the maze problem,” said camp adviser and resident Lantz Rowland. “Do we have people concerned about being in the ‘fishbowl’? Are they going to put us in a spot like a zoo? There’s a small fear of that.”

However, Rowland said TC3 residents aren’t too concerned about this scenario.

TC3 has been situated on a college campus once before. In February 2005, Seattle University (SU) became the first university in the nation to host a tent city when it hosted TC3. Until then, TC3 residents had always enjoyed interacting with smaller community groups to break down stereotypes and misconceptions, but once they set up at SU, their capacity as an educating entity evolved drastically.

During the 30 days TC3 was set up at SU, thousands of people visited the camp.

Rowland said residents were happy to be a part of the experience, but at times, the attention was a little overwhelming for some who opted to “hide out” in their tents. On one day in particular, TC3 became a spectacle for hundreds of middle-school children out on a class field trip.

“One day we looked up, and there were [a few hundred] kids doing tours, looking down and staring in,” Rowland recalled. “Some people had to go hide in their tents, but it wasn’t a big problem.”

Joe Orlando, director of the Office of Jesuit Mission and Identity at SU, said SU worked hard to prevent these scenarios; scenarios in which TC3 residents’ lives were invaded by the student population.

“We were very aware of that [issue]; we had to be really careful not to overwhelm this group of people,” Orlando said. “We had to be realistic that our university was trying to have a relationship [with TC3], yet not expect that we can funnel 7,000 people into their lives.”

Orlando said that in order to make sure this didn’t happen, SU spent six months preparing for TC3’s 30-day stay. As a private Jesuit university, the prospect of housing a community of homeless individuals fit with SU’s ethos of making a difference in the lives of people in need.

For the UW, a campus nearly six times the size of SU in terms of number of students, faculty and staff members, the prospect of feasibly having such a large community interact with a group of only 100 TC3 residents poses even greater challenges than the ones SU faced.

At SU, the administration set forth specific guidelines about classroom visits, and Orlando said that no class with more than 30 students was ever scheduled to visit TC3. At the UW, where many classes far surpass this number, this creates the potential for a scenario in which TC3 residents could be overwhelmed by student visits, especially since the camp plans to continue its open-door policy of letting in visitors whenever they choose to stop by.

Natalie Stahl, a graduate student in Health Services 572/573 — the class that initially created the proposal to bring TC3 to the UW — and a member of the RSO Students for Civic Engagement on Homelessness, said she and other supporters don’t want this to happen.

“We certainly want it to be meaningful for the UW while still having it be comfortable for residents,” Stahl said.

A key way the group is trying to assure this is by pressuring UW President Mark Emmert to set up a committee that can work on the organizational aspects of bringing TC3 to campus.

“Our expectation is that [the administration] needs time,” Stahl said. “We wouldn’t expect that hosting would occur before winter or spring 2010. Our main concern is that Emmert put together this committee … and we’re asking that that process begin.”

University spokesperson Norm Arkans said that Emmert, as well as other UW administrators, are well aware of the proposal, but they must first make sure that bringing TC3 to the UW is in line with the university’s mission and purpose.

For TC3 residents, their livelihood doesn’t hinge on the university’s decision. They have other hosts they can find. If the UW says no this year, they’ll continue on with their lives.

“I don’t take what people say personally,” said Rico Miles, a resident of TC3 for three years now. “I just say, someday.”

Reach news editor Casey Smith at news@dailyuw.com.