| By Big Radio News Staff |
Homeless people staying in a few public parking lots overnight in Janesville could see their options cut in half in a few weeks.
Janesville City Council gets a first look Monday at an ordinance that would remove the northwest parking lot at Hedberg Public Library as a spot where homeless people can sleep overnight.
The city for several years has allowed homeless people to stay in their vehicles overnight at both the Hedberg lot and the North Jackson Street lot just west of the Janesville Police Department headquarters.
Library Director Eric Robinson says the Hedberg lot where homeless people now camp has had growing instances of fights, public defecation, illegal drug use and other problems.
He says the library is not equipped to give people social services they need, and the illegal activity has library patrons alarmed.
Ordinances slated for council review Monday would bar homeless people from sleep overnight anywhere on the library parking lot. The North Jackson Street lot would still allow overnight sleeping in vehicles, but people would have to vacate the lot during the daytime.
The change could go in effect in September if the council approves it out of a public hearing later this month. Another related ordinance change being floated Monday would bar RVs, campers, tents and camping from city property.
Robinson says the library and other city officials are meeting on Friday with a group of the homeless at Hedberg who’d be affected by the change. The library would have new “No Overnight Parking” signs posted, and police would hand out informational fliers and other materials to explain the change to people who might continue trying to sleep at the library overnight.
Robinson estimates between six and 20 homeless people now park at the library lot throughout the day and overnight.
In the past, the library and nonprofits working with the library have provided Hedberg’s homeless care packages of toiletries and food.
Robinson says some who use the library lot follow rules, and keep the areas where they park clean. But he says the overall “perception” by the public is that the homelessness encampment at the lot has reached a point it’s detracting from the library’s safety and its desirability as a public amenity.
One homeless man who stays at the library lot tells Big Radio he has seen fights and drug use, including a man he says attacked a homeless man with a scissors during an argument.
But the man says the person who attacked with scissors was not homeless. In fact, the man says he blames most of the illegal activity rolling out at the library lot on people who aren’t homeless — but gravitate toward the library lot to hang out and sell drugs to some of the people who are homeless.
The man says he is employed as a mover, and has been homeless about six months. He says he and his mother live in a vehicle in the library lot with their two dogs, and they’ve got no place else to go but their vehicle.
He says many of the people he sees living at the library lot are those who’ve been evicted from an apartment, in large part because their landlords raised their rents sharply over the last year.
The man says he’s troubled the city would want to kick people out of the library lot, but also require people who would stay overnight in the city lot at North Jackson to vacate by the dawn the next morning.
The man says many homeless people he sees at the library lot wouldn’t be able to afford the gas to go someplace else for the day — and then keep their cars running at night when it starts to get cold later this year.
The man added he’s not sure how a few of the homeless at Hedberg would be able clear out of the parking lot. He says a couple of people there are living in vehicles that no longer run.
A U.S. Supreme Court ruling last month criminalizes vagrancy and homeless encampments in public places in three western U.S. states.
Some local social service agency leaders have recently told Big Radio they fear the high court’s ruling on homelessness — even if not applicable to all U.S. States — could spur local public policy changes that make it harder for homeless to find a place to stay.
In a memo announcing the proposed ordinance change, the city of Janesville lists the abolition of homeless sleeping at Hedberg as a way to “promote the city’s strategic goals for its downtown,” but otherwise offers no specific reasons for the change.
— Big Radio reporter-anchor Neil Johnson gathered information for this report.
