Dignity Village, Portland’s only sanctioned homeless tent
city, unknowingly finds itself featured in the latest version of the Grand Theft Auto video
game that came out earlier this year. The game has made billions of dollars from sales.
There are several scenes depicting the homeless camp. Below are images from the GTA Wiki
website.
According to the GTA Wiki, a website dedicated to Grand
Theft Auto, “Dignity Village is a homeless encampment near Procopio Beach. It
is accessible south of Route 1, through a train overpass.”
The website describes the characteristics of the camp in the
video game as “a few small buildings, with rusty sheet metal fences and
shelters, along with multiple tents where people live. Some anti-capitalism and
revolutionary signs can be found throughout the encampment, with messages like
“Capitalism is crisis”, “The revolution will not be
televised” or “We are: the poor, the unemployed, in debt, fed
up”, among others. The inhabitants will not take kindly to any of the
protagonists, and will become aggressive if provoked, or if stood next to for a
period of time.”
The website says that there is one gang attack here in the
game. Describing the enemies as having shotguns, advanced rifles, pistols and
SMGs. It says that one letter scrap can be found at the camp in the game.
The video games version of the camp is shown here on YouTube.
The actual Dignity Village houses an estimated 60
individuals and has been held up a national model for tent cities in North
America. Ironically, one of Dignity Village’s basic rules is “no violence toward yourself or
others” along with no stealing.
A spokeperson for Dignity Village said they are pursuing the situation with an attorney and declined to comment.
This article appears in 2013-12-20.