Stray items at a vacated homeless camp at Fairview Street and Patterson Drive.
(Clayton Baumgarth, WFIU/WTIU News)
The City of Bloomington vacated a homeless encampment on the city’s southwest side during the fourth day of new mayor Kerry Thomson’s term.
Thomson joined city staff and social workers Thursday at Fairview Street and Patterson Drive as people’s belongings were moved from the city-owned lot just across the street from Catalent.
She said she spoke with two people who were staying at the camp right before it was vacated.
“It was important to me, personally, to be there, because if I am to lead the city through such a complicated problem — and this one has many threads that are entangled — I need to understand at the ground levels the complexities but also the stories that go with them,” Thomson said.
The city-owned lot at Fairview Street and Patterson Drive. (Clayton Baumgarth, WFIU/WTIU News)
Thomson said the eviction was difficult to come to terms with but necessary due to two recent fires there, as well as unsanitary living conditions.
By Friday morning, all that remained were stray items — such as shopping carts, tires and tarps — and burn marks on the grass from a recent fire.
“It’s a no-win situation, really,” Thomson said. “It’s not what I would have loved to have done in my first week in office. It’s important to me if we were going to have to move a camp that we did it with as much dignity and respect and compassion as we possibly could.”
Kerry Thomson at a recent sit-down interview with WFIU/WTIU News. (Lucas González, WFIU/WTIU News)
The eviction process began under the previous administration, according to Thomson. She said she learned about it the night before and thought it needed to continue.
“It’s my commitment to the city that we will be a safe city where everyone is welcomed with dignity and respect,” Thomson said. “In order to be safe, there are sometimes, unfortunately, hard decisions to be made.”
The city received several complaints of people leaving trash on the lot before the camp’s removal, according to Angela Van Rooy, the city’s communications director.
City policy requires at least 72 hours' notice before vacating camps.
The city posted two notices at the camp: one Dec. 29 and another Jan. 2, according to Van Rooy. But she said downtown resource officers had been in conversations with people living at the camp since Dec. 12.
A notice to vacate posted at the lot. (Courtesy of City of Bloomington)
Downtown resource officers, who are sworn officers with the Bloomington Police Department, work with other agencies to notify people living at homeless camps when the city plans to vacate one. They also help them find other places to stay.
Thomson said the city helped people move their belongings to a police department substation near Switchyard Park where downtown resource officers work from.
The city will also help them get their belongings into storage if needed, according to Thomson.
“We had them keep anything they wanted; everything else they told us was trash,” Thomson said. “Part of dignity is being able to retain your belongings.”
Thomson said the city is working to find other living options for the displaced people. One of the two people she spoke with Thursday told her he would not go to a shelter. The other indicated he would, according to Thomson.
“The complexity of this problem may be as broad as the number of people experiencing street homelessness right now,” Thomson said. “That means we need a principled, compassionate approach that will work to keep them safe and keep the rest of our city safe.”
A coalition of homeless service providers tracks unhoused people, according to Thomson. She said she met with providers at a Friday meeting she called to collect input and develop an improved plan for responding to homeless camps.
She said that begins with more transparency, as many unhoused people don’t trust the date they’re told to move will be the day they’ll be vacated.
“As I learned today, there are different regulations, depending on if it's public property, private property, et cetera, on how much notice is given,” Thomson said. “If we want to help solve this problem, we all need to be on one team. We all need to be working in the same direction for compassionate care, that seeks to have a Bloomington where people don't have to sleep outside.”
Thomson addressed the camp’s removal in a video posted to the city’s Facebook page Thursday.
