A well done, very thorough piece from Kate Howard and I'm pleased to see she really dug for info from Commander Huggins. I'm also pleased to see that the good officer didn't have much to offer in the way of a defense of the numbers he tossed out last month.Look, it's a nieghborhood folks, and like any neighborhood, you'll have some folks who follow all the rules, some who follow some of the rules and, just like anywhere else, there will be some who think they make the rules and can break em whenever they please.
I think the biggest problem still facing the camp isn't so much from the residents, although I can guarantee that those who are advocating for the camp to be closed are keeping very close tabs on the people in it. Rather, it's the fact that the land the camp sits on, at least at this point, is not land that the owners - TDOT - traditionally allows people to be on. I know Doug Sanders is working diligently to correct that, but until then, I find it hard to believe that rules and regulations at the camp will have much teeth for those who simply tell the new "council" to go to hell.
The fear, in my mind - and I know that my advocate friends pooh pooh me on this, but I think it's a legitimate concern - is that someone who has been forcibly removed by members of the camp will find themselves a hungry lawyer looking to make a name for him/herself and will come back with a discrimination lawsuit against the city, county and state.
In the meantime, I'll be down at the camp helping with this year's cleanup, visiting old friends and talking to folks about the future.
I wish the good peeps of the camp all the best and sadly they'll need all of our support, based on the level of commitment some have in closing this camp. ya know, it's just too damned bad that we can't get the kind of effort we see at shutting this camp down transformed into getting the residents of our fair city some real assistance in procuring affordable housing, raising the minimum wage, creating job opps for folks and providing the resources necessary for raising oneself from a homeless camp to a housed and productive American citizen. You know, the American Dream, baby!
For many who are struggling, that dream has become an all too real, wide awake and never-ending nightmare....
Nashville homeless camp transformed after calls for closure
Tent City becomes re-entry point for better life
ZOOM Michael “Pontiac” Cooke, who used to live at the Tent City homeless camp, now lives at Mercury Court apartments, where he was reunited with daughter Rayanne Cooke-Dawson and his two other children. JOHN PARTIPILO / THE TENNESSEAN
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October 6, 2009
Nashville homeless camp transformed after calls for closure
Tent City becomes re-entry point for better life
By Kate Howard
THE TENNESSEAN
A year ago, Tent City was on the chopping block.
Today, the makeshift homeless camp is bustling with activity — advocates and church groups are regular visitors to the community by the Cumberland River where more than 80 people live. The residents have formed a council, laying down rules about dogs on leashes and where new residents can live.
Calls to close the camp have transformed Tent City. What was once a long-term destination for the chronically homeless has become a re-entry point for finding housing, or at least getting rehabilitation or disability checks. More than 20 chronically homeless people have moved from Tent City to their own studio apartments.
But the crude structures they left behind were quickly inhabited by other people looking to swap life on the streets for primitive shelter from the elements.
Police officers come through more than ever, shining their flashlights into tents, asking for identification. Despite the strong police presence, Metro Police Cmdr. Damian Huggins still wants the camp closed, citing safety concerns and an increase in downtown crime. A meeting is scheduled for tonight to once again address the future of the camp.
Advocates for the homeless are in no hurry to close the camp because it's a central location where they can find and help those in need. But they agree that the camp's numbers should not continue to grow.
"If you shut it down, what are you going to have?" said Dennis Huey, a volunteer outreach worker at the camp. "They're going downtown. So why fight this?"
Many come to help
Much has changed at Tent City since Huggins initiated calls to close it months ago.
Just over a year ago, trash piles lined the paths, and residents dug holes in the ground to use the toilet. Though church groups came often with food, most meals were cooked over a fire.
The trash piles, where rats fed, have been replaced with trash bins. Portable toilets line the entrance to the camp. Most days, a truck arrives by the railroad tracks to feed the residents.
Church groups have routinely made the homeless encampment a service project, and dozens or even a hundred at a time go there to clean up and visit. Local news media are regular visitors, and camera crews from as far away as Europe have showed up to document life there.
"When that thing was running under the radar, and it was quiet, people knew this was happening but most of the time people looked the other way," said longtime outreach worker Steve Samra. "It became more public, and not only did more people set up camp there, but more people were looking for ways to help."
Still, Huggins, leader of the city's highly visible Central Precinct, wants it shut down.
"This is nothing I think that needs to continue," Huggins said. "This needs to be something we look to resolve in the near future."
Huggins, who took control of the tourist-heavy Central Precinct last year, began trying to enforce trespassing violations at the camp last fall. He also started a program offering one-way bus tickets to the homeless through private donors, although he said it wasn't just for the homeless but for anyone who needed financial help to leave town.
Huggins said he has noticed an increase in police calls in the area around Tent City in the last few months.
At Tent City proper, officers have found marijuana grow spots and located a fugitive during a check of the camp. There was a fight recently involving a hammer.
A breakdown of the calls for service show that the majority of the calls in about a mile radius of Tent City — 137 of 184 calls in a year — were attributed to reports of a suspicious person or requests for an officer for an unspecified reason.
Huggins did not provide information on whether those calls reflected actual crimes committed.
Reports of a person with a weapon increased from three to nine, and calls for an intoxicated person grew from two calls to five this year.
Huggins said he also believes that crimes committed downtown by homeless people can be attributed to the growth of Tent City. He has seen more homeless-on-homeless assaults in the Church Street area.
"My opinion is, it's absolutely a pattern that follows the increase in population we are seeing at Tent City," Huggins said. "Calls associated with drunk and disorderly behavior are up dramatically, and we know those areas like Tent City have a population with addiction. … They don't just stay in Tent City all day."
He can't be sure the residents of Tent City are responsible for crimes committed a couple of miles away from the camp until he has a list of everyone living there. He has asked advocates to compile a list for him.
Huggins' concerns were discussed at a meeting last week of the camp's resident council. The council, which started meeting about two months ago, has five members led by Doug Sanders, director of ministries at Otter Creek Church and a regular volunteer there.
Sanders said one group of volunteers withdrew its offer to help because of safety concerns raised by Huggins.
"It's going to give the public the wrong view of Tent City," said Wendell Segroves, who has lived at Tent City on and off for five years. "But maybe that's their intention."
The city's Homelessness Commission is considering ways to keep the numbers lower at the camp, and possibly limit the number of newcomers.
Councilman Erik Cole, chairman of the commission, says that it's a tenuous situation and that nearly everyone agrees the camp, as it currently exists, can't be permanent.
But he said he receives all the police reports from the area, and the residents tell him they feel safer there than on the streets.
"Nothing has been presented to me yet that says the majority of those issues, the other crimes taking place downtown, are all coming from Tent City," Cole said. "We are a year into what's been a long, hard process. But we're making progress as best I can tell."
Some find new homes
A few miles from the camp, a housing development has become the new home of Tent City residents given a second chance.
Though some of the problems of Tent City persist — some people still drink heavily, do drugs or get into abusive relationships — these residents have access to all the help they need at the Mercury Court apartments, where most live a simple, domesticated life.
It was about a year ago that Mike "Pontiac" Cooke and Dyan "Mama Bear" Garton cooked most of their meals over a campfire. They opened up all the cans they had, poured them into a big pot over a wood fire and called it hobo stew.
Now, she fills her fridge up with fruits and vegetables, and she brags about her cooking. "Mama likes her meatloaf," Cooke said with a chuckle.
The two have been together about two years, and camped together for a long time in Tent City. Now they're neighbors at Mercury Court on Murfreesboro Pike.
Cooke and Garton agree it's unlikely they would have gotten out of the camp, if not for the possible closure and all the attention it brought. Cooke, who now sits on the city's Homelessness Commission, is against closing the camp.
"If you shut it down, all these people are just going to spread out into alleys and cubbyholes around the city," he said. "The outreach workers won't know where to find them."
Friends from the camp often walk to Garton's apartment for a meal or to use the shower, and Garton has been down a few times to visit. But she says it's a different place now, with a rotating cast of people she doesn't know anymore.
Garton sometimes misses the calm feeling of a crackling campfire, but it's not as relaxing as going into her home and locking the door behind her.
Cooke is still reeling from having all three of his children sit on his couch together this week, something that he couldn't do for the last seven years he spent on the streets.
Sitting next to Rayanne Cooke-Dawson, his 21-year-old daughter, he couldn't stop talking about his blessings. "Herein lies the beauty of it, sitting on a couch with my daughter," he said.
Upstairs, Jennifer and Troy Johnson are still adjusting to four walls after living for 19 months at the camp. They moved to Mercury Court in June, and Jennifer Johnson said she has heard a couple neighbors talk about wanting to go back. "I don't want to go back, but sometimes I miss the times we had together," she said.
When John Turner moved to Tent City last week, it was a longtime resident at the camp — Harold LaVelle — who let Turner bunk with him until he set up his own tent.
LaVelle also had an apartment at Mercury Courts for a while, and he is the only person so far to give it up and move back to the camp. He said his apartment got lonely.
