One month after an ordinance to ban “public camping” and public sleeping prompted outrage, the October 2 Springfield City Council meeting once again centered on the City’s treatment of its unhoused population.
Looming over the 5-hour session was an incident last week in which the City claims personnel from the Office of Public Works, the police department, and the City’s outreach team cooperated with unhoused members of the community in clearing trash and “unwanted” belongings from the scene of an encampment at 5th Street & North Grand Avenue. Video footage of the “cleaning” procedure provoked anger on social media, and prompted the City to attempt to address the issue in a press conference last Thursday, the 26th of September.
Having answered press inquiries last Thursday, lead members of the City’s Unhoused Outreach Program, Shanon Allen and Officer Michael Newman, stood before the City Council to again testify to their handling of that situation while also presenting on the work the program does for the City’s neglected unhoused population; making the case to alderpeople, and to an aggrieved public audience, that what was caught in video — scenes of earth moving equipment shoveling tents, bicycles bags of items and other belongings into dump trucks — did not on their own represent the whole truth of the event.
Many members of the community noted that the procedure at 5th & N. Grand took place days before the Route 66 Mother Road Festival on the coming weekend. But repeatedly the Outreach Program spokespeople suggested that the social media commentary was mischaracterizing their work. Mayor Buscher also explained that in conversation with the police who oversaw the scene at 5th & N. Grand, she had discovered confusion over the public response.
“The department did not think that doing their daily job was going to be such a big problem,” said the Mayor. “We’ve had the conversation with them – we’ve asked them to think in advance, and have conversations.”
But as Ward 2 Alderman Shawn Gregory noted, and as was further expounded by members of the public, there remains deep concerns among community members and social work experts alike regarding the focus on law enforcement as a tool of outreach to the unhoused.
“We have to understand that there are some situations where we’ve seen people killed who are having mental issues, and this and that,” said Alderman Gregory. “So people have some reservations about police interaction with homeless people. That’s a real thing, and we have to understand that.”
“The theme of tonight,” Alderwoman Erin Conley of Ward 8 declared at one point, “is communication.”
The Alderwoman of course made that remark while discussing the need for greater clarity from Office of Planning and Economic Development (OPED) and other City teams; a lack of which provoked bickering in the chamber over OPED’s choice to source funding for elevator renovations at the Hoogland Center from the City’s dwindling pool of federal Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) money.
This was a sore point for alderpeople, as well as for Hoogland Executive Director Gus Gordon, who lamented having caused such contention with his public funding request, which is needed to ensure the Hoogland Center remains accessible and compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act. But it was especially dismaying for Beth Langen, who relies on the Hoogland Center’s elevators to access the Center’s facilities.
“This just doesn’t, and shouldn’t, have to be done at the expense of community development projects needed by low and moderate income residents for whom these HUD funds are intended to benefit,” said Beth. “It shouldn’t be placed in competition with, or deplete the limited resources you have that are intended for, and urgently needed by the City’s most economically disadvantaged residents.”
Alderman Shawn Gregoryand Ward 3’s Alderman Roy Williams, Jr. have both repeatedly fumed in the past year alone over OPED Director Val Yazell’s – in their view, questionable – use of the limited federal money for projects which seemingly benefited mostly core City businesses rather than the low income community and housing resources originally envisioned by the 1974 Housing and Community Development Act which initiated that grant program; housing resources which are sorely needed as several homes throughout the City continue to bear unrepaired, tarped-over damage after 2023’s derecho. Director Yazell, who was not present for Tuesday’s Council meeting, has repeatedly defended her office’s use of CDBG by arguing that if they were not used then the City would lose renewed access to those funds.
Alderman Williams especially expressed frustration with Yazell’s argument, observing that OPED tends to make the Council aware of their intentions for federal funds at the last minute, deep into federal approval processes which can take weeks to assess, and which often come before the alderpeople dangerously close to funding cutoff dates.
“There’s gonna have to come a time where we quit this,” said Williams. “You know the reality of what this looks like.”
During the citizen’s address portion of the meeting, Springfield resident and journalist Ken Pacha told the City, as far as the 5th & North Grand incident goes, and as far as the Hoogland Center fight goes, “Part of the problem is the optics.”
He continued, “We’ve watched all this money get talked about; almost an hour and a half on elevators to be ADA-compliant, and you guys made [Gus] find a funding source that he doesn’t even want. I’ve never seen Gus Gordon walk away so sad from a ‘victory.’ Because you guys forced him into that — to take money from the community that he actually gives a damn about. How heartless is that?”
The optics for the City were again called into question when one of the people who were subject to the City’s operation at 5th & North Grand Avenue, a Mr. Falon Chappelle, stood up to speak. Chappelle, who is unhoused and pursuing job opportunities, worked at that location as an artist and as a bike repairman.
“Before I became homeless, I was working, I was getting ready start my own business, and,” said Chappelle, “I lost all that.”
He told the Council, “Officer Newman is such a liar.” According to Chappelle, when Newman was told another officer had already assured him the presence of his tent and belongings – including tools used for work – were not violating the law, Newman aggressively dismissed the other officer’s judgement. “He told me his officers didn’t know the law — that he knew the law better. And he told me I didn’t have options, that it was either take it down, or they were gonna destroy it. And after that they didn’t give me any options. They just took everything.”
Videos from the incident shows bicycles at the scene being dumped into the back of a dumptruck in a mangle of twisted metal — bicycles Falon Chappelle told the Council he had been working on. They were disposed of by the City along with his tools and art supplies, and his shelter.
“It’s hard to try to do anything when people are steadily breaking you down.”