Homeless camps bring city scrutiny

Jerry Evans sat under the trees in a grass lot next to a casino, waiting for the police to return.

A stack of blankets lay in a tent beside him. His friends shared a cigarette. Towels and clothes hung over branches.

"I'm almost 50 years old," Evans said. "I've never been arrested for anything. I didn't ask for this. I didn't ask to be here. But this is where I am."

The Carson City Sheriff's Office told Evans and several other homeless people Tuesday morning to leave the camp along Highway 50 East. Officers promised to come back later to make sure they left the private lot.

In the end, police returned, but didn't force Evans and others to leave.

Two homeless camps, one off Highway 50 near the Gold Dust West and another off North Carson Street, draw the most public complaints, according to the city. Officials say something needs to be done, but a solution has not been determined.

City records don't indicate that the number of homeless has increased this year, but officials say homeless camps have become a problem.

Evans has been at the Highway 50 East camp for about a month. He said he's tried to find a full-time job but can't. The economy is bad and he can't even afford to stay cleanshaven.

He said he used to be a welder. That was more than five years ago. Now he holds a sign on a street corner for a phone company one day a week.

Laura Wedge, 46, has been at the camp longest, about a year. She said she wishes police understood that no one wants to be in the camp. She said she wants to leave like everyone else.

"They have so many people out of work that they only want the cream of the crop and we ain't it," she said. "So, you know, it's like, what are you going to do?"

A man outside the ring of trees slept in a tent held up by a box. Beer cans, toilet paper and human waste lined the ground near him.

The issue

City Manager Larry Werner said city department directors and community service groups are starting to meet to discuss what to do about the camps.

"Do you recognize the issue and help solve it or do you ignore it and hope it goes away?" he asked rhetorically.

The answer to the problem isn't as easy as making the homeless move or trying to give them housing, Carson City Sheriff Kenny Furlong said.

They might not move where you want them to, he said, and they might not take the services that are offered.

"Everyone is cringing about what we (should) do," Furlong said of city officials. "It's not like we have all the money in the world."

Carson City has 73 people living on the street and 107 people living in motels, according to a city survey conducted in January. That's down from 168 people living on the street and 381 people living in motels in January 2008.

But the city sees more homeless people in the spring and summer, usually living along the eastern outskirts of the city along the Carson River, according to Furlong.

People don't usually complain about the homeless living along the river because they don't see them, he said.

John Douglas, 61, said police are only called to the camp where he lives off North Carson Street when someone who doesn't live there starts trouble. About 10 people live at the camp.

Police have made him move out of camp before, but Douglas said he respects them, and they know his name.

Douglas said he gets up early every morning to see if he can find work. He said he's been looking for a job for the three years he's been homeless in Carson City.

He admits that alcohol is prevalent at the camp.

"Yeah, we drink," he said. "But that's the only way you can survive out here."

'A dreadful situation'

Community service groups in the city say they want to find housing for people in homeless camps.

The economy has forced everyone to think differently about the issue, said Kathy Bartosz, executive director of Partnership Carson City.

The unemployment rate in Carson City is 10.8 percent, according to the Department of Employment, Training and Rehabilitation. That's compared to the national rate of 8.9 percent.

Bartosz said the foreclosure of the low-rent Downtowner Motel in March also made people start to think about the homeless more.

"We have the resources in the community, it's connecting them to one another that is the problem," she said.

Friends in Service Helping (FISH) runs a 25-bed men's shelter and 13-bed women and family shelter, the only homeless shelters in the city. The city health department has said it wants to build an emergency shelter, but needs to find the money first.

Jeff Fast, FISH executive director, said he'll help people find housing, but they have to be sober and looking for a job.

"People are very, very aware of poverty at this time," Fast said. "What used to be invisible to most people is what they're kind of watching for."

Joyce Buckingham, executive director of the Ron Wood Family Resource Center, said most homeless people really are trying to find work. FISH shelters aren't enough and the waiting time for subsidized housing is at least a year, she said.

The homeless in Carson City aren't looking for a "free ride" like some people think, she said. They are simply struggling without the help they need, she said.

"It's a dreadful situation," she said. "It really is."