December 18, 2022
The subject of homelessness dominated the discussion at Tuesday night’s council meeting which had a relatively light agenda. The main prompt was a response to a December 6 motion by Councilor Wayne Jenness that requested a report on “the winter protocol plan for individuals and families experiencing homelessness within the city.”
The report explained that the city has a Winter Weather Emergency Plan for the homeless that is activated during extreme cold or heavy snow. Also known as the “winter protocol” this plan seems largely administered by the Lowell Transitional Living Center (LTLC) which not only provides overnight accommodations but also coordinates beds available elsewhere. In response to questions about “are there enough shelter beds available to get people out of the cold?” City Manager Tom Golden said LTLC has 190 beds and that there are 18 beds on “Westford Street” and 12 beds on “Andover Street.” The winter protocol report also mentions a hotel program which is administered by LTLC.
The concluding paragraph of the report identified perhaps the greatest challenge:
While the City and its partners work diligently to bring unhoused individuals inside to ensure their safety during extreme winter weather events, there generally remains a number of individuals that are unwilling to come inside. The ability of outreach workers to take worthier action in these situations is limited.
Two such individuals had registered to speak on this motion response. The first was a young man who said he lives “behind the dog park” which would be the wooded area near the Hunts Falls overpass, between the VFW Highway and the north bank of the Merrimack River. He said he had been informed that he would be evicted from his encampment in the coming days and had nowhere else to go. The second speaker, a woman, also homeless, mostly pleaded the case of the first speaker, although it was unclear to me exactly where she spends her nights.
Here’s what the male speaker told councilors:
I’ve been living in Lowell for eight years. There’s a few things. I’m one of the kids who has been homeless more times in my life than I’ve been housed, so I’m more comfortable living outside. Due to the protocol, [staying at the shelter] is detrimental to their recovery or to the situation they’re in right now because of all the open use of drugs and alcohol and all the other unsavory things going on over there.
So for me, the problem right now is the injustice that is happening to the tent communities. I live behind the dog park on First Street. I don’t know if you guys ever go by Saints Memorial, there’s a ramp right there. I live behind the dog park. Last week, they gave us five days to quit, to leave there. We’re supposed to be leaving tomorrow, but now they’re saying Saturday.
So the problem is, we’ve had no formal notice to leave or basically vacate any land over there, but the land has been abandoned and not maintained by anyone from the city or by DPW. When I first got there, it was all torn down tents and basically rubbish. I cleaned it up with the Lowell Litter Crewe. I actually got thanked for doing it.
I’ve been there for eight years maintaining the property. Now they’re telling me I have to leave in the middle of Christmas. Like, what do we do here?
I can’t go to the Shelter. I’m banned from the Shelter because of the actual, all of the, uh, and uh, originally, the people got out of hand, so I’m not allowed there anymore. I’ve utilized all the aspects that we have here. I’ve gone to CTI, I’ve gone to RCA, I’ve gone to multiple different places. Now, you’re telling me I have to leave my house. Where do I go?
That’s all I have to say. I don’t know what else to say about that.
There followed numerous comments from councilors about the need to get homeless people out of the cold, and questions to the city manager about the availability of beds.
Most of the comments, though well-intentioned, danced around a big issue: What do you do with someone who wants to live on their own and not in a shelter-type setting? The City Manager’s motion response, quoted above, identifies that very thing as a major impediment to the desire to safeguard unhoused individuals.
Councilor Dan Rourke addressed this when he repeatedly pressed on City Manager Golden the question, “Are there enough beds available to get unhoused individuals inside?” to which Golden responded “Yes.” With that Rourke pointed out that if someone through their own behavior, either by theft, belligerence, or some similar behavior, will not be allowed into a shelter, the city should not force a change of the rules that puts caregivers and other residents at risk.
The collateral consequences of homelessness came up in another motion response, this one on a Councilor Corey Robinson motion requesting an increase in Lowell Police presence on Middlesex Street in the vicinity of the shelter as a way to assist businesses in that vicinity which are being harmed by the behavior of troubled and troublesome individuals congregating there. The response, from the Police Superintendent, explained the deployment of officers in that area, the possibility of adding more officers when new ones soon graduate from the police academy, and the increased use of surveillance cameras. While acknowledging all of those things, Robinson urged the administration to do more.
Although no business owners spoke on this motion or the response to it, months ago, the owner of the Purple Carrot Bread Company on Merrimack Street gave compelling testimony to the council on the disruptive and business-killing behavior of a few who are homeless. If you asked business owners on and around Middlesex Street, each of them would have similar or worse stories to tell.
The great challenge is, what can be done about this? More police might help but they’re not going to solve the problem. The reality is, what will the police do? Arrest someone for loitering because they are sleeping in the doorway of a business after having been told several times to leave? If an arrest is made, when the arrested individual gets to the Lowell District Court, what is the judge going to do? What can the judge do? You can’t send someone to jail for that. Most likely, the person will be released from court and will be right back on the street.
As I’ve written before, this is a complex issue with no easy solution. A good place to start might be by using more precision in the language we use. Consider these two scenarios: A single parent with three minor children is evicted from their apartment and is unable to find or afford another dwelling. We call them homeless. Contrast that with the individual who spoke to the council, who chooses to live outdoors, and whose past behavior has foreclosed his ability to enter the shelter. We call him homeless. We refer to both of these people as being homeless, but their circumstances, and the measures needed to assist them, are very different. By lumping everything under the umbrella of homelessness, we detour from the quest to find things that are difficult but might actually work, and head down the path of easy-sounding solutions that don’t work and often make things worse. This and prior city administrations and those who work for the city seem sincerely committed to search for workable solutions, but it’s the public and, at times, elected officials, who succumb to the temptation of harsh talk or fanciful proposals that don’t help reduce the problem.
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