City sanitation crews, police resource officers, social workers, medical outreach specialists and the mayor all pitched in to clear a near-westside homeless camp Thursday.
On her fourth day as mayor of Bloomington, Kerry Thomson put on jeans, hiking boots and work gloves and went to a homeless encampment at the intersection of Patterson Drive and Fairview Street, across the street from Catalent. The city owns the property.
“I learned about this late last night,” Thomson said of the plan to clear the camp and evict the people living there. “I wanted to make sure we did this with as much dignity and respect as possible.”
Thomson said she talked to social workers and police resource officers who for the past few weeks have been working with the camp residents to help them move on. “It’s getting cold. They’re not safe out here.”
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Just two remained Thursday. Thomson talked to one, a man with a dog called Scooby, about his situation. How long had he lived here? What did he need? Where he was headed?
He’s lived at the camp on and off for two years, he said. A recent fire in his tent would have killed him, he said, had his dog not barked until he woke up and escaped the burning structure.
By noon Thursday, the camp about cleared and a city trash truck pulling away, he wasn’t sure where he would sleep that night.
“I needed to be here first hand, to talk to these men,” Thomson said. “We’ve got to do something. Finding a compassionate response that works is going to be complicated.”
She said the prior city administration had planned to clear the camp the week before Christmas, but didn’t as outreach workers extended the deadline to help residents find somewhere to relocate.
She said it’s essential to have a plan to follow to close camps while offering alternatives to unhoused people with no resources and nowhere to go. “Other cities do it,” Thomson said.
“I’ve contacted our homeless service providers and let them know I want to meet with them tomorrow to get their input on the best next steps.”
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Thomson returned to the clean-up, pushing a grocery cart full of bicycle wheels and other items toward a refuse heap. She helped sort items so the two men still at the camp could salvage what they wanted to keep.
Then she got back to business at City Hall.
In 2022, the city cleared three homeless camps at a cost of about $5,000 for 150 hours of labor. Written notices are posted days ahead of time and the city contacts local shelters and service agencies.
No one tracks where the unhoused people go after the camps are cleared.
Contact H-T reporter Laura Lane at llane@heraldt.com or 812-318-5967.
