It was a chilly November night on Bannon Street.

In front of the Union Gospel Mission, where men praised God in exchange for a hot meal and a thin mattress, a breeze rippled across a row of colorful tents.

More than 100 people were making their home here, creating a fragile community of the pitied and loathed.

Some of them sprawled on dirty sleeping bags on the sidewalk, waiting their turns for one of the beds inside. Some perched on rickety chairs outside their dome tents, drinking King Cobra and telling stories. Their bicycles and clothes and trash were scattered everywhere. They hardly seemed to notice the large rats that prowled the premises in search of bits of discarded food.

The weather has since turned bitingly cold, and the makeshift campsite just north of downtown Sacramento has vanished. Police, responding to complaints from the neighborhood, have chased the homeless men and women away. But the raggedy masses have not gone very far, and they are almost certain to return, only to be rousted again.

It is a chess game that most everyone agrees has to end.

A lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court on behalf of the Sacramento campers argues that the city's practice of rousting campers, issuing citations against them for sleeping outside and sometimes destroying their belongings is illegal. The suit proposes, among other things, that the city establish "high tolerance" campgrounds where law enforcement will allow homeless encampments, acquire one or more vacant lots for "dignity villages" similar to one in Portland, and develop an indoor "tent city" where people could live for lengthy periods.

It is an approach that appears to be gaining traction among authorities, including city police, as well as advocates for the homeless.

"This situation is not safe, and it's not sanitary," says homeless advocate Gregory Bunker, standing among his charges on Bannon Street. "The city needs to acknowledge that we have a problem, and this is not the answer."

A 'bedroom facing the sun'

Eve Deutsch's place is a flimsy orange tent in a field a few yards from the American River bicycle trail, in the shadow of the Blue Diamond almond processing plant.

From here, she can see downtown Sacramento's burgeoning cityscape. The sunsets are spectacular. It is less than a mile, on foot, to Loaves & Fishes, where she eats lunch and takes showers most days.

"I always wanted my bedroom to be facing the sun," she said with a smile, squinting in the fading afternoon light as cyclists in spandex whizzed by on the levee above her. "Oh yes, I can have my breakfast out on the balcony."

But this little slice of heaven has its hellish moments.

It is messy and gritty and physically painful at times, especially during harsh winter months when the tarp covering her tent is no match for the rain and wind. Alcohol and drug abuse is rampant, stealing is common, and sometimes violence erupts in the night. Deutsch, herself an admitted methamphetamine user, relies on a male friend to protect her from potential predators.

Worst of all, though, is the fact that Deutsch and her friends cannot stay in one place for more than a couple of months before being scattered by police. Sometimes, she and other campers move no more than a block away, with a wink and a nod from officers. Some get on buses bound for the city's winter shelter at Cal Expo. Some use their government checks to buy rooms in cheap hotels.

Some 2,500 homeless people live in Sacramento, about 700 of whom have been on the streets for a year or more, surveys suggest. Bannon Street and the almond factory are two of the area's largest camps, and a majority of homeless people float between the two, along with a third site known as The Island, off Garden Highway, and dozens of smaller ones.

"What are they going to do with us?" asked Deutsch, a slip of a woman who stands about 5 feet tall, quotes Einstein and reads Stephen King and the Bible. "We don't want that much. Just a piece of land and our freedom. Is it too much to ask?"

Call The Bee's Cynthia Hubert, (916) 321-1082.