Displaced again, homeless camp residents address Bloomington city council, mayor at public mic
On Wednesday, two weeks after Bloomington officials cleared a homeless encampment south of town, some of the residents who lived there addressed a meeting of the city council, which was also attended by the mayor.
At least a dozen people, who either lived in a displaced encampment, or were there to advocate on behalf of the residents, sat in council chambers through the first part of the meeting, which was related to the convention center expansion.
While they awaited the first chance at public comment, one woman among the dozen turned in her chair to talk to Bloomington mayor Kerry Thomson, who was seated behind the group. Thomson and the woman relocated to the lobby, followed by some others, for several minutes of back-and-forth.
Some of the perspectives from that conversation in the lobby were aired out at the public mic a few minutes later.
Introducing himself as leader of the camp leaders for the homeless community in town was James Barnard. He told the council: “There are supposed to be resources and places out there that are community support for the nomadic society in which we reside.”
Barnard continued, saying that to be a good “neighbor” does not require someone to live in a house, but rather only to “respect the community and be respectful of those in its community.” Some of the encampment residents are trying to be good neighbors, he said, adding: “But we cannot do so, if we keep getting run from campsite to campsite to campsite every week, because of whatever reason.”
The reasons that have been cited by the Thomson administration in connection with the clearance of encampments have included safety concerns related to fires and violence.
The Aug. 21 closure of the encampment along the Rail Trail south of town, after a posting of notices in late June, is at least the fourth significant clearance since the start of the year, when Thomson first took office.
The first came in early January, at a city-owned property on the northwest corner of the intersection of Fairview Street and Patterson Drive. The second closure came at the end of January, on a wooded stretch of city-owned property behind Wheeler Mission.
The third encampment clearance came in early May on public and private property at the southwest edge of Switchyard Park.
On Wednesday, Thomson told those in the lobby conversations that her administration is working on long-term solutions.
In the meantime, according to information provided at a press conference in early August, there are on any given night around 50 empty shelter beds in Bloomington.
Part of the challenge is convincing unsheltered people to stay at a shelter, who in many cases don’t consider it a fair choice. In some cases, that challenge includes finding shelter for couples who don’t want to be split up, space for dogs, or storage of possessions, among other hurdles.
Speaking on Wednesday from the public mic was Sidd Das, who works with a group called Help Ourselves, which provides meals to people who gather in Seminary Park as well as to the encampments, and helps residents of encampments move, when the city issues its 30-day orders.
Das said, “You’re telling us that we need to wait for the long-term solution that was supposed to be already present. What are folks supposed to do?” He continued, “What are we all supposed to do when we’re exhausted trying to support folks being able to move? And what are folks, who have all of their belongings on them, who are being uprooted multiple times over the course of a week, supposed to do?”
Das told the city council, “Folks are not being provided the basic human needs that we all deserve and the basic dignity that we all deserve.”
Das told the council, “When we even find private property that we have permission to camp on, all of these are evicted within the course of a few days.”
The allusion to private property was the backyard of Bloomington redevelopment commissioner Randy Cassady’s Rogers Street house, which is next door to the Community Kitchen.
After the Aug. 21 Rail Trail encampment clearance, some of the campers just headed farther south along the Rail Trail to some land owned by Somo Development Company (Tom Wininger) and Blind Squirrels (Tamby Cassady).
Cassady noticed that some of the campers had pitched their tents directly in the Clear Creek floodway. He arranged to have screened chain link fencing installed around the Rogers Street backyard, and portable toilets placed in the driveway.
On Friday, after the Wednesday (Aug. 21) clearance, The B Square watched Cassady tell people camped in the floodway that they were in danger of being washed away. He invited them to move to his Rogers Street backyard for 30 days.
Several people took Cassady up on the offer, and at least a half dozen tents were pitched there. During their stay, Cassady told The B Square he was “learning a lot.” One night, Cassady said, he had to drive one of the campers to the hospital because of an incident involving a dog.
During Wednesday’s council meeting, Cassady responded to a B Square text about the status of his backyard with the message: “BPD [Bloomington Police Department] gently moving them. All tents are down now.”
After the meeting, Thomson told The B Square that Cassady had approached the city, because things had gotten “out of hand.” Thomson said she’d told Cassady the city could not help without a signed no-trespass order from him.
Das told The B Square that he and the encampment residents were grateful for the effort that Cassady had made.
Temporary, non-shelter options for homeless communities are included in the city council’s mid-June letter to the mayor that lists out items that the council hoped to see included in the 2025 budget. From the letter:
Fund one or more safe temporary housing options other than overnight shelters, such as safe parking area(s), designated camping area(s), or Single-Room Occupancy building(s), including any associated staffing needs.
One strategy that has been used in other cities is to acquire hotels and convert them into permanent SRO (single-room occupancy) housing. The Coalition to End Homelessness has published several case studies on such efforts.
During the Aug. 28 HAND (Housing and Neighborhood Development) departmental budget hearing, council president Isabel Piedmont-Smith asked HAND director Anna Killion-Hanson about that item in the letter.
Piedmont-Smith asked Killion-Hanson: “Has your department looked into other options that we can implement very quickly—either a single-room occupancy building, or a sanctioned camping site, or at least a place where people can park their cars and be safe?”
Killion-Hanson’s answer: “I most certainly have. I actually looked at a single room occupancy potential project on Friday of last week.”
Killion-Hanson responded to an emailed B Square followup about her investigation into the SRO (single-room occupancy) project by indicating she could not disclose any details right now, due to the sensitive nature of any talks.
Related to the problem of providing shelter to the unhoused, at the start of its Wednesday meeting, the city council voted to send a letter of support for an application by the Community Foundation of Bloomington and Monroe County to the Lilly Endowment for around $7 million, over five years.
The Lilly grant, if awarded, would help fund some of the elements of a recently released housing action plan developed by Heading Home of South Central Indiana.
