Columbus Code Enforcement officer Fred Barnett inspects the homeless camp off the People Trail behind the old REMC building off Second Street in Columbus, Ind., Thursday, Dec. 14, 2023. The camp is located on property owned by Mariah Foods. Barnett is tasked with clearing homeless camps in the city limits with the help of the Columbus Police Department. Gutierrez and the others in camp were issued trespass warnings and given until Monday to be off the property. Staff photo ny Mike Wolanin
Columbus Code Enforcement officer Fred Barnett inspects the homeless camp off the People Trail behind the old REMC building off Second Street in Columbus, Ind., Thursday, Dec. 14, 2023. The camp is located on property owned by Mariah Foods. Barnett is tasked with clearing homeless camps in the city limits with the help of the Columbus Police Department. Gutierrez and the others in camp were issued trespass warnings and given until Monday to be off the property. Staff photo ny Mike Wolanin
City officials have been dispatched to what they described as a record number of homeless camps in Columbus this year, while other local officials say they now believe more people are opting to live in tents rather than stay at a local shelter.

Columbus Code Enforcement has located around 130 different homeless camps this year, up from 93 last year and 63 in 2021, according to city records. Code enforcement does not patrol the city for homeless camps but rather responds to reports received from local residents and businesses, officials said.

The camps, which have ranged in size from just a single tent to a group of upwards of 20 tents in one camp that was about “as long as a football field,” have been found “all over the place” in the community, said city Code Enforcement Officer Fred Barnett.

Some of those locations include Mill Race Park, Noblitt Park, underneath bridges, near the railroad overpass, along the People Trail and near The Taylor apartment complex downtown, among other locations.

Barnett said there is no place for these individuals to camp in Columbus, so they often wind up on private property and are forced to leave for trespassing. In some cases, they are found to be camping on public property, and officials try to “offer them all the services that we’ve got” but generally give them 72 hours to leave.

“But a lot of them don’t want to take those opportunities,” Barnett said. “So, all you can do is push them from point A to point B. …(We’re) trying to help the individuals out, but we have to let them know that they can’t be on private property, and they can’t be on public property.”

Barnett said some of the people living in the camps have just fallen on hard times and are experiencing temporary homelessness, but “the biggest portion” of camp residents are there due to drug use or mental illness.

While some of the people living in the camps are from elsewhere and are just passing through Columbus, most are from the Bartholomew County area, according to those attempting to assist them. Barnett said he rarely finds the same people at different camps he is called out to, though he has been dispatched to different camps that tend to pop up in similar areas, such as some city parks.

“Most people I see (in the camps) are different, but there are several that … moved from Mill Race to Noblitt or from Noblitt to underneath the bridge, or something like that,” Barnett said. “There is a percentage of that going on, maybe 10%.”

Homeless shelter

At the same time, Brighter Days, an emergency housing shelter for the homeless at 421 S. Mapleton St., has been averaging fewer people staying per night as of late compared to the same period last year, with officials getting the impression that an increasing number of homeless are opting to camp rather than stay at the shelter, said Kelly Daughterty, executive director of Love Chapel, which operates the shelter.

“We’ve been in the low 20s, which is up a little bit from the summer, but it’s less than we had last winter,” Daugherty said. “Last winter, we averaged about 27 to 28 per night, and we’ve been at 21, 22 most days.”

“It just feels like there are a lot more people that realize that camping in a tent is an option to Brighter Days, and an option they sometimes prefer,” Daugherty added. “…My gut feeling is that there are more encampments out in the community now, but I can’t give you numbers that will verify that. It just feels that way to me.”

There are several reasons why people may choose not to stay at Brighter Days, including people who do not want to part with pets, drugs, alcohol or weapons, none of which are allowed at the shelter, Daugherty said. “I’ve heard from a couple of folks recently that it’s tough on the streets, and they’ve got to have their weapon for protection, and they can’t go to Brighter Days and give that up,” he said.

There also are some individuals who cannot go to Brighter Days due to behavioral issues, said Columbus Township Trustee Ben Jackson, whose office owns the shelter’s building and pays for utilities as part of a joint venture with Love Chapel. There also are individuals who “would rather stay down in the encampment where they can use illicit substances and not have to worry about getting caught or having them confiscated,” he said.

Additionally, not every homeless person in Bartholomew County is eligible to stay at Brighter Days. One requirement to stay at the shelter is to be a Bartholomew County resident, which the shelter loosely defines as anyone who has been in the county for at least 30 days, Daugherty said.

“The reason for (the residency requirement) is when we first opened, the Jennings County sheriff would pull up and drop off people that were homeless in Jennings County at our door,” Daugherty said. “We had Decatur County do that as well. Our funds are from Bartholomew County, and we want to be a Bartholomew County shelter, not a southern Indiana shelter.”

However, if an out-of-county individual shows up at Brighter Days, they can stay there for one night and then staff offer them transportation to a shelter close to where they’re from, but most people don’t accept the offer, Daugherty said.

Safety and health concerns

Officials have raised concerns about the camps, citing safety and health risks. The camps are often littered with garbage and, in some instances, needles, and can be located in wooded areas where it is hard for firefighters and first responders to reach.

They also can pose a high risk of fire depending on the heat source being used, open candle usage inside a tent and possible carbon monoxide poisoning, said Columbus Fire Department spokesman Capt. Mike Wilson. The cold winter temperatures also place people in the camps at risk of frostbite and hypothermia.

Columbus firefighters have been called out to homeless camps in the past due to fires, garbage being burned and wood being burned in unapproved containers, including one fire a few years ago at a homeless camp off Jackson Street that resulted in an individual suffering significant burns.

On Nov. 19, Columbus firefighters were dispatched to a report of a fire at a homeless camp located in a wooded area southeast of The Taylor apartments on Second Street. The fire took place while a countywide burn ban was in effect.

Wilson said a preliminary report found that an individual who was either a resident of the camp or knew someone at the camp intentionally started the fire, resulting in heavy fire damage to some of the tents. Firefighters needed to use 250 feet of firefighting hose to get back to the camp.

Permanent supportive housing

Local officials said the community does not have a key tool that they believe would help keep many homeless in Columbus off the streets — permanent supportive housing.

Permanent supportive housing is a program that seeks to provide housing and supportive services on a more long-term basis to people who are experiencing chronic homelessness, according to the National Health Care for the Homeless Council. The services can include, among other things, connecting people with community-based health care and treatment services.

The National Alliance to End Homelessness says permanent supportive housing is a “proven solution” for the most vulnerable chronically homeless people and “has been shown to lower public costs associated with the use of crisis services such as shelters, hospitals, jails and prisons.”

Currently, local officials largely rely on what is called “rapid rehousing,” which is an intervention model that seeks to help homeless people with more moderate needs find a home as quickly as possible.

Most of the time, the recipients of rapid rehousing rent an apartment and are provided temporary community support services that might include case management and temporary financial assistance.

However, that intervention model does not work for everybody who is experiencing homelessness, officials said.

The end result, officials said, is that some people who are being rehoused in Columbus are winding up homeless again, sometimes bouncing in and out of homelessness more than once.

At the same time, Jackson and others have said in the past that they have noticed an increase in the prevalence of severe mental illness among the local homeless population since the pandemic struck, suggesting that there could be an increased need for more intensive interventions that officials say are not readily available in the community.

Jackson, for his part, said he understands why someone would not want people camping out on their property, but kicking them out of the camps does not solve the problem, but rather moves the same problem to another location.

“My analogy is (that) it’s like trying to get water off your counter top with a squeegee,” Jackson said. “You’re just moving the water around. …We haven’t solved the fact that they’re camping on someone’s property. We’re just solving the problem that they’re camping on that person’s property.”

“We’ve just geographically switched where they shouldn’t be camping,” Jackson added. “They’re still camping out in a tent somewhere where they shouldn’t be camping, and as a community, we need to get together and figure out a comprehensive plan to at least address this problem.”
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