ST. LOUIS — Dozens of people at a downtown homeless encampment were told to leave Monday as efforts were made to relocate them to a warehouse a few blocks away.
Interco Plaza, at the intersection of Tucker Boulevard and Martin Luther King Drive, has been home to a few tents put up each summer by homeless people. This summer, the camp had nearly 50 people.
The plaza sits between the St. Patrick Center, a nonprofit offering assistance to the homeless, and the new office for Square. Mayor Tishaura O. Jones early last month committed to removing the encampment within 60 days, but private security took action by placing signs around the plaza saying it would be cleared Monday. Jones’ spokesman Nick Dunne said the city did not support the effort.
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“We do have some concerns about people not wanting to leave the plaza, but we will not be forcing anybody out of there,†Dunne said.
Jones said in a statement, “I do not support private sweeps of public property. Thank you to those who have spoken out on behalf of our city’s most vulnerable, and we look forward to continuing this conversation.â€
About 10 a.m. Monday, 20 tents were set up in the plaza. A few mattresses were being used as beds and for seating. The city put a canvas-covered chain link fence around the plaza last month. Beyond the condition of the plaza, its safety has been a concern for homeless advocates.
“This came up on its own, and what it’s become is not what we want to provide,†said Amanda Laumeyer, senior director of development at St. Patrick. “There’s no services, it’s not dignified, not clean. It’s not safe. At 3 a.m. anyone can walk up to a tent and open it.â€
Laumeyer was concerned for the safety of St. Patrick staff and others in the building due to the proximity to the plaza, she said. Some homeless people carry sticks, poles or bats in order to defend themselves.
The St. Patrick Center has partnered with the city and StarWood Group — a real estate development company led by Square co-founder Jim McKelvey and John Berglund — to create a shelter nearby.
It’s a warehouse owned by StarWood at the corner of Cole Street and 14th Street, about a five-minute walk from Interco Plaza. St. Patrick has filled it with 40 tents placed on wood pallets as well as couches and chairs. The warehouse, now dubbed Camp Cole, has bathroom facilities. St. Patrick staffers were encouraging the homeless to move to the warehouse, promising it was a safer location with more reliable access to resources from St. Patrick, including programs like Alcoholics Anonymous.
“It’s hard for me to look at Interco Plaza and not think that there’s a better solution,†Laumeyer said.
As of 5 p.m., there were about 17 beds still available at the warehouse, said Carly Smale, outreach coordinator at St. Patrick’s Center.
Some residents of the plaza didn’t want to leave. Homeless people have built a community of sorts there, said Timothy, a 46-year-old homeless man who has lived at the plaza for two weeks. He declined to provide his last name. Timothy was forced out of his Dutchtown apartment three weeks ago because he objected to his roommate using meth, he said.
“I like it here. I feel safer here than I do out on the street by myself,†he said. He had a knife and gun pulled on him when he was sleeping on the street, he said, which is why he moved to the plaza. He carries a post from a staircase banister to use as a bat, just in case.
The plan for the warehouse is to provide a transitional place to live until its residents can find permanent housing with the help of St. Patrick, Laumeyer said.
St. Patrick has enough funding to keep the warehouse open for 90 days, she said, but the center hopes city money will become available to keep it operating, or to create a new, similar site. The city has been supportive of St. Patrick’s efforts, Laumeyer said. In addition to providing water service and trash pickup at the warehouse, the city also gave tables, chairs and other supplies. The city is not directly funding the warehouse operation.
KB Doman, a 23-year-old Washington University law student, has volunteered with nonprofits for five years and now works with Tent Mission STL. She’s worried that Camp Cole might not be as successful as St. Patrick hopes.
“It looks like a cool place but any space that people are relocated to has to be optional,†she said. “Forced displacement is never an acceptable option. Especially when there’s not enough spaces (in permanent shelters), especially when not everyone can comply with the rules. Private corporations steamrolling everyone to force them out of public land is never OK.â€
Plaza residents who chose not to move to the warehouse will be back on the streets again, she said.
“It’s a cycle. People are moved from one place, they form communities, start watching out for each other, get access to resources, but then there’s another wave of eviction as groups get too big and too self-sufficient,†Doman said. “... We’re really hoping for something new under Mayor Jones.â€
Taylor Tiamoyo Harris of the Post-Dispatch contributed to this report.
