Poll: City Justified In Clearing Out Homeless Camps?
For a couple of years some homeless had set up camp near the riverfront. But that’s changing:
Hopeville was the second of three riverfront camps that the city plans to clear by May 18. The first, Dignity Harbor, was bulldozed last week. Officials said they have offered housing vouchers to residents of all the camps so they can stay in hotels and apartments. (STLtoday.com on 5/11/2012)
I visited Hopeville last year and while I was sympathetic to their situation I was also repulsed by what I saw.
The poll this week asks if the city was justified in clearing out these camps. The poll is in the right sidebar below the advertisement.
– Steve Patterson
Is the City justified? I think they are obligated first, justified second. The absence of adequate sanitary facilities, the presence of trash, and the close proximity of the residents to one another are reasons enough to compel the City to eliminate the camps. Doing so creates other obvious problems: 1) how long can the City afford to fund temporary living vouchers? 2) what impact does the presence of homeless people have on the motels and apartments selected to temporarily house these people? And I wonder how I’d feel if I had just moved into my new apartment, then realized that the adjacent unit was filled with homeless? Honestly, I’d feel less safe and probably a bit angry, much like some (NOT ALL!!!!!) Locust Avenue loft-condo residents feel about some of the nonsense that happens around Larry Rice’s building. Somehow we need to differentiate between and deal differently with those who are homeless because they can’t get a job, and those who are homeless because they want to be. My brother fits the latter category. He has a MS degree in finance and has chosen to abandon his family and live in Palisades Park in Santa Monica, CA–just a few blocks from where I used to own a home. I’d actually see him in a sleeping bag under a tree sometimes when I’d drive along Ocean Avenue toward the SM Freeway. I try hard to be sympathetic but ….sometimes I’m not.
YES! I’m old enough to remember when these characters were called ‘Bums”, “Hoboes, “Transients”; etc. They are what they are because they want to be what they are. Get them on their way … and stop giving them money when they ask (demand) it. It’s like votes for politicians. It encourages them.
Many of them are mentally ill. (Not that giving them money will solve that problem.)
We should be our brothers’ keeper, we should NOT be their enabler. Part of the issue is suburban communities turning a blind eye to the problem, and leaving it to the city to deal with it, and part of it is some people simply can’t or won’t say “no”, when it needs to be said for everyone’s good.
You can’t just live wherever and how ever you want. We have rules is this country and for the benefit of everyone we all need to follow them. Bums too!
I agree with JZ
we had tent cities during the great depression, why is it any surprise that our current situation necessitates the same?
Wow, some heartless responses and not one solution. We create and even support a system that perpetuates homelessness and
then take pleasure in and make justifications for treating them like
some blight. Shame. And when the housing vouchers run out and/or people start complaining about having formerly homeless for neighbors? Would it have been so repulsive if the city had set up trash removal like every other residential area? A dumpster and twice weekly pickups is comparatively cheap. A few outhouses, perhaps, and some charitable souls willing to drop off a few toiletries once a week. Or, I don’t know, maybe ask them how they can be helped? Novel. A hundred different ways to respond to homelessness and almost every response here involves not helping at all.
How about other municipalities besides the city doing this? What is downtown Clayton doing to help the regional homeless population? Why should it always and ever be downtown, Mayor Slay, or the City of St. Louis that has the obligation of figuring out the “shameful” homeless problem, providing shelter, services, etc.? I think you would agree that this is a human issue, not a city issue, so it seems to me that municipalities all over the region should energetically pursue assistance for the homeless. Spread the problem around to address it practically, not concentrate it.
It always amuses me to read impassioned letters in the paper on behalf of Reverend Rice from people in places like Town & Country, Creve Coeur, Ladue, etc. Nothing prevents these compassionate folks from taking their zeal to assist Reverend Rice to their neighbors and elected representatives in their own swank communities, which likely have ample resources to help their fellow man. It is rank hypocrisy to concentrate a complex and overwhelming social problem in one urban community with limited resources and then, from the safety of a high priced suburb, criticize the urban community for not “helping the homeless.”
Community outreach and shared responsibility are great ideas. And I would have said the same had any of the other responses mentioned that. But they didn’t. Why did you quote “shameful”? Is it not shameful that some in our society prefer to scorn the homeless rather than address the causes? My comment, by the way, was directed at those who are advocating not helping at all.
But let us not forget suburban homelessness is also a big problem. St. Charles County has just started addressing this recently, having a homeless population fast approaching what you’ll find in St. Louis City. (razing homeless encampments in the city pushes the homeless into the exurbs, it doesn’t address the real issues behind homelessness) There are far more homeless than what we can pick out most of the times. Many homeless, especially in exurbs, try hard to blend. They’re ashamed of their situation. I wonder who makes them feel like that?
the vast majority of these people are way too insane to integrate into main stream society. a tent city seems like a cheap, reasonable solution
@haveaheart – There are multiple resources available for the homeless, for people with mental illness, for people with drug dependency AND for alcoholics. The question is not that these people are somehow being demonized or denied services, the question is the assumption that they are somehow entitled to live where and how they choose, while paying no taxes and demanding and requiring more services than most other city residents and taxpayers! Most people are sympathetic to people who have been hit by a financial crisis; most of us are not very sypathetic to someone who chooses to stay drunk, not work and to rely on public handouts from “some charitable souls”, especially when those charitable souls are assuaging their guilt by enabling these bums to live somewhere, anywhere else other than in their safe, suburban enclaves . . . .
Watch this: http://vimeo.com/10369390. (if the link doesn’t post properly, it’s vimeo dot com / 10369390) Funding for homeless services is incredibly hard to come by. Shelters close all the time and those that have avoided budget cuts have limited beds. There are a lot of holes in the system; not all homeless are created or treated equally. Single men find it most difficult to be homeless, did you know? Fewer services are available to help them. That’s why so many of the visible homeless are men. What I read in your response are a lot of excuses not to get involved. And maybe that is why more people aren’t involved; they can pre-determine who is worthy of their compassion based on stereotypes and personal hangups.
“Single men find it most difficult to be homeless, did you know?” Huh?! More difficult than single women? Families? Veterans? Teens? I’ve worked with providers of homeless services in the past, and I’ve lived in an area where generous homeless resources simply attracted a larger number of consumers.of said services. Supply and demand are pretty evident, although demand always seems to outstrip demand.
I agree. There are many reasons why people end up homeless. And yes, there is stigma attached with both the condition and the underlying causes / reasons. The issue we have on the table here, however, is not the larger issue of homelessness (and why), the issue is allowing / encouraging homeless people to establish semi-permanent encampments. In a city like St. Louis, with multiple vacant structures, both city owned and in private hands, there is absolutely no reason why people should be living in camps, period. Larry Rice chooses to use the homeless as pawns for whatever his “mission” may be, but it’s doing little to actually improve their situation, nor is it helping the city or its residents.
@c12a359a9af12215c9677a3d4c4f9462:disqus…what we have here are 3 issues which you seem to fail to understand 1) homelessness has many reasons and some cures. We will always have some degree of homeless, (not that I am comfortable with that) but it isn’t a wave of the wand fix. 2) homelessness believe it or not, happens in the best of suburbs but the police quickly usher them to the town border. 3) The City has continually borne the brunt of the negative press regarding homeless issues but the truth of the matter is if Rev. Rice was so concerned with the homeless, he would put away his pride, stop using the homeless as pawns and work with the City (and other cities and agencies) to develop meaningful solutions.
So who is the bad guy? The City which wants to help the homeless and get them into shelters with some basic systems of support or Rev. Rice who wants to put them in tents exposed to the elements and not play nice and follow the rules all the rest of the charities have to?
Great comments and homelessness IS complex. But I think we are making this situation too complicated.
AFTER the Tucker tunnel was already slated for demo (post MN bridge collapse), Rev. Rice began handing tents out at his front door stating his shelter was closed but you could take the tent and move into the tunnel. Why if it was slated for demo?
Because if your method is to get into the media and show the region homelessness, set up a situation where the big bad city must evict the homeless, or the original Hopeville in this case.
I’ve sat on the board of the Bridge for 4 years now, Steve now sits with us. Before Steve arrived, our Bridge patrons told us they were told something to the effect of “you can’t stay here tonight, go to the tunnel.”
What really breaks my heart is, regardless of whether Rev. Rice has good intentions, regardless of if the region needs to see this and acknowledge it in some way…it is not healthy for anyone to lead people into a situation that end in destruction of community.
I watched them tear down Dignity Harbor. Bill Siedhoff (also a Bridge board member) had everyone placed in temp housing and/or programs. How? He put 5 social workers in the field to interface with those in need identifying problems and solutions if possible, limiting enabling and trying to help in a progressive, modern way.
Nonetheless, how sad to see any community destroyed.
I started my post talking about the Tucker tunnel. Has the region forgotten that was the first community we had to remove?
Now, there are multiple media reports showing the region homelessness because encampments moved from the tunnel to the riverfront.
When will the region speak up? Is it not even more plain to the region that it’s probably not a progressive idea to pair a tv station (channel 24) with homelessness? At the Bridge, we actually had a person diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic fly into STL because they had heard we could take care of them here. We have heard people across the nation believe STL is homeless-friendly.
I think we are homeless-friendly. But what can we manage?
Rev. Rice clearly does not manage homelessness well. Look at the streets around NLEC.
A friend asked me to house a supposed Marine, a young supposed Afghan/Iraq war-torn Marine, at Mark Twain. The idea was to interface with him like a social worker would. My friend paid his stay. We took him to lunch. My mom bought him a cel to help look for a job. We took him to St. Pat’s and the VA. We lost track of him. He disappeared. We hope he made it back to Edwardsville where he said he first heard DT STL is the place for people in need.
Before we lost track of him he said he had been staying on the floor near the restrooms at NLEC for 2 wks. He said he panhandled for food. “Why?” I asked. He claimed in 2 weeks at NLEC no one told him about meals-served at the Bridge. No one told him about the VA. In fact, he claimed no one interacted with him at all.
Assuming the “Marine’s” story was completely false, I called Rev. Chris Rice, Larry’s son. I asked him if he had social workers on staff? He replied “We are serving about 150 persons per night and it’s just me & Rev. Ray Redlick trying to see everyone, but my sister is getting her degree in social work now.”
I believe this is the wrong way regardless of intent.
You cannot have a tv station spanning the region telling donors you are located at 1411 Locust ST. You will create an unmanageable situation.
Everyone in the region knows where Ted Drewe’s locations are. They’ve been around a while.
NLEC has been around a while. And apparently the region accepts these methods of helping those that yes, may be truly homeless (mentally disabled), those that may be able to be helped, and those that are enabled at various levels.
San Francisco found you must combine patient enforcement of law (not always arresting a drunk the first time…trying to help him make a better choice first) with active street social work.
Our SLMPD is limited. Bill Siedhoff is limited.
Tents and warehousing as many people as you can call into DT STL is not the way.
I support a distributed services model with 40 or so beds, food, and social workers on-site. I think these facilities should be near mass transit and allow persons to establish an address, use a computer and a phone. I would not support any method without on-site social workers that are well-paid and motivated to stop enabling every day at every level.
And why doesn’t the region talk about Lucas Park too? It’s served, not as a park for kids and the city, but as a slot machine where random rewards may happen. Hang out there all day, maybe a church will respond to channel 24 and bring food. That’s the thing about random rewards, you’ll wait for them. And why not? You can get wasted in that park. You can have sex there too. Right next to the entrance to the children’s library and a high school.
Very good Brad. I would agree with most of your comments. But Channel 24….like it or not, this is a democracy…if Rice wants to own a tv station, he can.
But the bottom line is that Rice has found that he can use the homeless population for his own self grandizing (?) and has done so for years. The more in the news he is, the more popular he thinks he is. The sad thing is then is that the homeless are the ones hurt in the process.
And as of this morning….the ACLU has again defied reason and decided to defend Rice. A once great organization reduced to taking crap cases to get themselves in the news as well.
I (and I would think most of the people) would not have any problem with St Louis being known as a place to help the homeless if this was a place where they could truely get help, not be used. But St. Louis cannot solve the problem itself. This is a regional problem which unfortunately most in other areas want to ignore…because the City will take care of them.