WORCESTER — Multiple city councilors talked about the need to develop a solution to respond to homelessness in the city Tuesday and made it clear that part of the response would not include the temporary use of tents in city parks and on public property.
The City Council unanimously voted for Councilor-at-Large Donna Colorio’s order to end consideration of, or file, a petition requesting the city allow homeless to set up tents in public spaces. The matter was raised by Samantha Olney, director of the nonprofit Homeless Addicts Leadership Organization of Worcester, who is homeless herself, she said.
Olney’s petition asked the city to allow the usage of tents on public property and city parks as a temporary solution to the growing homeless population, asserting the measure is more effective than “arresting unhoused individuals for existing.”
The petition also suggested that the city should allow tents if people pitching a tent follow guidelines about trash disposal, tent size and capacity limits.
With housing costs rising in the city and state in general, the homeless population has increased in the city. City officials and homeless services providers have acknowledged shelter bed capacity has not met demand.
Shelters have also come under scrutiny for whether they offer safe spaces, particularly for women and transgender people. In January, some homeless people and activists set up tents by a temporary winter shelter at the old RMV building to protest the lack of beds.
At the City Council meeting, Olney said her nonprofit is working on a proposal for a self-governed and self-sustaining encampment community. She said the city’s Quality of Life Task Force has dogged homeless people.
“We believe that as fellow humans we deserve the right to live free of persecution of our circumstances,” Olney said. “We are stuck in a cycle of the city recycling people in and out of the city shelters as well as a cat-and-mouse game between the Quality of Life Task Force and the unhoused.”
Several residents also spoke to oppose the petition, saying that allowing tents would make parks unusable for other residents, hurt property owners and businesses, and serve as an invitation to other homeless people to come to the city.
As they spoke on the item, several city councilors said the matter of homelessness is complex and something the city is trying to work out.
‘Nobody has the answers’
“This City Council, this administration, the City of Worcester, this country is facing the challenges of our unhoused and nobody, nobody has the answers,” District 2 City Councilor Candy Mero-Carlson said. “For any one of us here to stand here tonight and say that we have the answers…if we did, I’ll tell you something. We’d be all over national news each and every day.”
District 5 City Councilor Etel Haxhiaj said she heard both the request by homeless people for respectful treatment and from neighbors concerned about encampments. While saying she was not advocating for anyone to sleep in the parks, Haxhiaj requested an invitation for Olney to a group convened by the city to discuss homelessness.
Bringing up a petition from last year calling for a pause on clearing or sweeping, encampments Haxhiaj said research has found sweeps do not resolve issues and worsen conditions.
“We were elected to represent everyone. We were elected to speak with genuine concern about the people that have absolutely nothing,” Haxhiaj said.
Councilor-at-Large Khrystian King also requested the city look at adding unsheltered people to the city’s housing taskforce and for a report on legal proceedings in the country related to encampments.
Several councilors declined to support Olney’s proposal or any notion of pausing the clearing of encampments.
“When a resident says to me that they can’t enjoy and they don’t feel comfortable in their home anymore because there’s an encampment that is close to their property, we need to be able to call our professional staff members and ask them to intervene,” District 3 City Councilor George Russell said.
Services for the homeless
When discussing possible services for the homeless, King and Councilor-at-Large Kathleen Toomey asked City Manager Eric D. Batista about the status of proposals to set up a homeless day center and a tiny-homes project, respectively. Batista said both proposals have faced challenges in finding partners to facilitate the sites.
Toomey and Councilor-at-Large Morris Bergman also brought up a frequent complaint from Worcester elected officials that surrounding towns are not providing homeless services and housing, and homeless people are coming to Worcester from those towns.
Bergman requested the city’s delegation with the state Legislature propose legislation to require towns surrounding Gateway cities to contribute to addressing homelessness by some means.
“We have to balance out what we can do realistically to what we’re able to do and we can’t do that when the cities and towns surrounding us just expect us to do everything,” Bergman said.
Several councilors and Batista, also defended the work of the Quality of Life Task Force and Director of Constituent Services Dan Cahill, following comments criticizing the taskforce for their role in clearing encampments.