Category: The Street

Tribune:

The Common Council unanimously passed an ordinance banning solicitation directly in traffic on Monday. The ordinance prohibits those collecting donations, distributing literature, or selling or offering items, from stepping into traffic to solicit motorists. This includes standing on a sidewalk and reaching into traffic in any way.

The discussion seems to have been entirely about people fundraising at intersections, but the last sentence indicates that this would ban panhandling, too. You could stand on the sidewalk and hold your sign, but if a motorist offered you money, you could not reach “into traffic” and take it.

It strikes me that a ban like this has much more impact in a city like South Bend than in Worcester. Worcester has several urban areas with lots of foot traffic, so if you want to pass out fliers or solicit donations, you don’t have to rely on motorists. South Bend, on the other hand, is just a big suburb, with a low population density and few areas with lots of walkers. Motorists are the only game in town.

Kevin Ksen says he was arrested for distributing flyers. He was picked up while promoting an event for people concerned with how the Worcester Police Department is behaving while COPS is filming in the city.

Talked to him on the phone today. I hope he will go public with more details. For my part, I find this to be, all hyperbole aside, scary.

Just got word that Worcester has taken down the signs for their much-criticized “anti-panhandling” campaign.

More details when this is confirmed.

The L.A. Times has had several articles in the past week about homelessness on Skid Row in L.A.

An alleged “dumping,” the practice of hospitals or law enforcement agencies taking patients or inmates and dropping them off on Skid Row, was captured on videotape.

The city attorney has filed lawsuits against two Skid Row hotels accused of practicing the “28-day shuffle,” in which people living in residence hotels are evicted after 28 days so that they don’t get legal rights as residents by living somewhere for a month.

Columnist Steve Lopez states what should be the obvious and says that the homeless need homes, not police harassment.

Lopez also pens a hopeful story about a homeless man named Ernest Adams who’s recently been able to get off the streets and into his own apartment.

The Mayor, businesses, and the ACLU find themselves in agreement over a plan to crack down on crime on Skid Row but not sweep up homeless people.

An editorial on this approach.

Letter writers express their opinions.

“Have we really become so heartless, materialistic and inhumane that we consider the problem of skid row to be one of cleaning up trash rather than finding a solution to a human tragedy? “

It’s quite shocking to visit the Skid Row neighborhood and see how many people live such a desperate existence. None of the police approaches to the problem address the core issues of mental illness and addiction that lead to chronic homelessness. The poor will always be with us, but the problem on Skid Row won’t be minimized until we can treat these mental and spiritual problems to help restore these men’s and women’s dignity.

A man walking his dog in Green Hill Park yesterday found the body of a homeless man, the third discovered in the city in five weeks.

Ricardo Rivera, 57, was found dead in the woods near the Stanton Street area, police spokesman Sgt. Gary J. Quitadamo said.
(Telegram & Gazette, subscription required)

The number of known people living on the street has more than doubled with the approach of spring, although the weather has been fierce at times. Yesterday’s low was 18F.

Update: Telegram & Gazette:

The family of the 57-year-old man found dead in Green Hill Park Monday morning said he was not homeless and had been taking medication since he started becoming “confused.”

[…]

Mr. Rivera’s family said yesterday he had lived with them in the city for the past four years or so and had left sometime Thursday night. The family searched for him, but could not find him.

So was he officially a “missing person” at some point? The police say he was known to stay at the PIP. Did his family figure he’d just wandered off again? The newspaper story is sparse on the details.

WTAG-AM reported this morning that a homeless man, Sammy, was found dead in a car in a used car lot in Main South.

It is possible he had been dead for some time.

I didn’t hear the radio report, and it’s not on the local websites, so that’s all I know. This item will be updated.

Friday update: Samuel Acevedo, RIP. The Telegram & Gazette has the story:

Basing their assessment on the condition of the body, police and Mr. Malvey said Mr. Acevedo must have been dead for some time.

[…]

Mr. Malvey said that, in a given week, he finds three or four people seeking shelter in automobiles parked in front of the dealership.

The article confirms that Mr. Acevedo “preferred living on the street,” and that it was challenging to get him to rent an apartment or stay in a shelter.

A situation like this is frustrating. You think, “What could have been done to prevent this?” and there’s no good answer. It’s one thing if a person prefers living in cars to staying at a rough place like the PIP shelter. It’s another thing if a person prefers staying in cars to living in an apartment.

There will be a vigil to remember Allan “Al” McKeon, who died homeless near Worcester’s Union Station Thursday night, at the station at 5pm February 13.

I have been shaking the trees trying to find someone who knew Mr. McKeon and will talk on the record. Word on the street is that he was receiving veteran’s services and had been drifting in and out of town too often to become part of any scene. I’ve gotten two very different physical descriptions for Mr. McKeon, which makes me fear he was not widely known.

Mr. McKeon was not one of the “16 on the street” reported here.

This vigil is sponsored by the Worcester Homeless Action Committee and Real Solutions.

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Postscript

From Taryn Plumb’s account of the vigil in the Telegram & Gazette:

Three homeless people who knew Mr. McKeon also showed up at the gathering, crying and hugging.

“Don’t you understand how cold he was?” said one woman, Robin, who has been living in and out of shelters for 17 years. She claimed to have covered Mr. McKeon’s body with a sleeping bag the night he died.

“We sleep in a snowbank,” she said, tears running down her cheeks. “Don’t leave me outside to freeze to death.”

David Zirin has an article about the disparity between the revelry of the Super Bowl and the deplorable conditions on the street in Detroit.

He writes of

the homeless being taken to a three-day ‘Superbowl Party,’ where they’ll get the actual food and shelter they need until the big game’s over, after which they’ll be kicked back out on the streets.

Continue reading “Super Bowl in Detroit”