Business owners and residents near an emergency housing shelter on Columbus’ east side will have a chance to talk directly to city officials about their beliefs that homeless people are loitering, stealing and using drugs in their neighborhood.
Mayor Jim Lienhoop, city department heads and staff members, Columbus Police Chief Jon Rohde and city council members will lend an ear during the 6 p.m. Monday public meeting at Columbus City Hall.
Neighbors and businesses aired their grievances about the Brighter Days Housing emergency shelter during an emotional Sept. 20 town hall gathering at the America and Roby Anderson Community Center, also on the east side.
The emergency housing shelter has been operating in a renovated former Columbus Township fire truck maintenance facility at 421 Mapleton St. for the past two years. It has a capacity for 36 individuals, separated by gender.
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Residential and commercial neighbors presented a petition with about 200 signatures to Brighter Days Housing representatives asking that the shelter be moved out of the neighborhood.
Beth Gross-Dilley, who owns a warehouse near the housing facility, said something needs to be done to address the increase in crime and drug activity in the neighborhood since the shelter opened.
“It wasn’t that way before the shelter was there,” she said. “Every neighborhood has crime and drugs, but not to this excess.”
She said she plans to attend Monday’s meeting.
“I don’t mean to sound uncaring,” she said. “But it’s something that needs to be addressed.”
Columbus City Councilmen Dascal Bunch, who represents the east-side neighborhood, and Tom Dell, an at-large councilman, attended the Sept. 20 meeting and promised to arrange a meeting among the residents, business owners and city officials.
“We will listen to residents’ thoughts and we have some thoughts about this, too,” Lienhoop said.
Rohde said he is putting together statistics about crimes reported near Brighter Days and is prepared to talk about enforcement in the area.
The police chief said he plans to explain how officers respond to complaints of public intoxication and trespassing, for example.
“If someone sees an individual walking in Pence Park, even if they are there all day, that is not a crime,” he said. “We are prepared to discuss why residents might see us responding to the area and talking with individuals and then leaving.”
Columbus Township Trustee Ben Jackson has told the residents that while some of the behavior of homeless people in the area is annoying, it is not illegal.
The meeting comes as the city continues to deal with an increase in the number of people who are using Brighter Days services or are attempting to find places to live within the city without being detected by police or nearby property owners.
“The homeless issue (in Columbus) is greater than it used to be,” Lienhoop said.
The mayor said Brighter Days is housing 20 to 25 people a night, individuals who would probably be out on the streets on any given night without the shelter being in operation. However, he also acknowledged that there are homeless individuals in the city who are unwilling or unable to follow the emergency housing shelter’s rules, and choose not to stay there.
“We are trying to channel people to Brighter Days, but some don’t want to live with any rules or structure, and Brighter Days expects them to do that,” Lienhoop said.
Brighter Days has a handout listing all of its rules. It bans possession of alcohol, illegal drugs, paraphernalia or weapons of any kind among overnight guests. The rules also prohibit behavior that might include abusive language or profanity, confrontations, stealing, criminal activity or violence in any form. Any person staying more than one night must meet with a case manager to establish a goal to work toward permanent housing.
The rules state that clients cannot be on or near the Brighter Days facility, including the entire city block around the facility, between the hours of 9 a.m. and 6 p.m. unless they have a scheduled appointment. The rules also state the clients should not be on the property of neighboring businesses unless they have official business there.
However, neighborhood residents and business owners say the clients loiter around their properties throughout the day.
Lienhoop said he understands the residents’ complaints about people sleeping on picnic tables in Pence Park, which is near Brighter Days, because parents do not want to have their children at the park with strangers nearby.
“But unfortunately, it’s not illegal,” Lienhoop said of sleeping individuals that the neighbors have reported. “You can poke him and ask him to leave, but it’s actually not illegal behavior.”
A new collaborative effort is starting this month between Columbus Township Trustee’s office and Centerstone to expand hours for an engagement center at 1951 McKinley Ave. where Brighter Days clients, and others who are homeless, may drop-in to access services and programs. The facility is adding showers and a laundry facility and Brighter Days clients are going to be encouraged to go there during the day, Jackson said.
Broader problem
It’s not just the area around Brighter Days Housing on the east side of Columbus that is seeing an increase in the number of people who appear to be homeless, Lienhoop said.
“Just talk to the library or Columbus Regional Hospital,” Lienhoop said. “They are seeing it, too.”
Some individuals seeking shelter in Columbus have recently been released from the Bartholomew County Jail or Indiana Department of Correction and are attempting to find their way home to other cities, sometimes with little or any resources, he said.
“I feel badly for the people involved in this, but we can’t have people living in campsites in the city,” Lienhoop said. “It’s not sanitary and it’s not safe.”
Lienhoop said city officials have found that as they clean one camp site up, the individuals simply migrate to another location that also must be cleaned up.
“We think of Columbus as an urban environment where there are not a lot of places to hide, but there are a lot of wooded places within the city where there isn’t much foot or vehicle traffic,” Lienhoop said.
In the summer, many of these areas are shielded by trees. But in autumn as leaves fall, areas where homeless people are seeking refuge become more visible, he said.
Fred Barnett, the city’s code enforcement officer, was kept busy over the summer identifying and working with six- to seven-member city crews to dismantle various encampments within the city limits where individuals are camping in tents or other makeshift structures.
Fourteen have been discovered so far this year, from underneath bridges to behind the Columbus City Garage and near a parks maintenance building, Barnett said. Camps have been found in Noblitt Park and in an area behind Haw Creek Boulevard, he said.
Cleanup has involved removing garbage, wood, scrap metal, stripped-down bicycles, lawn equipment, batteries, propane tanks and other items, Barnett said.
Some of the individuals living in the camps are addicted to drugs and many have active warrants for their arrest, factors that may convince them to not seek help through Brighter Days, he said.
One man who was rousted from an outdoor camp recently was arrested last week for trespassing in a garage at a vacant home in Columbus, he said.
“This situation is not going away until we find a better way to manage it and come up with a solution,” Barnett said.
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What: Neighborhood Public Meeting about Brighter Days emergency housing shelter complaints
When: 6 p.m. Monday
Where: Columbus City Hall, 123 Washington St., Cal Brand meeting room
For more information: 812-376-2500
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