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Police crack down on homeless activity, advocates question motives
Metro police say 454 people have been charged with “quality of life” violations downtown since the department began an initiative focused on cleaning up the area in late July.
Although police officials refrain from labeling individuals as homeless, the persons charged have been homeless or chronically homeless.
“There’s been a consorted effort by the police department since the summer to strongly address quality of life issues downtown,” said Don Aaron, Metro Police spokesperson.
Quality of life violations include public drunkenness, indecent exposure and trespassing.
Police officials said despite criticism from homeless advocates that police are “picking” on the homeless population, they are attempting to help many of them and prosecuting any persons who break the law.
“We don’t categorize people, we don’t go out looking for a category of people,” said Cmdr. Andy Garrett of the Central precinct. “We go out looking for violators.”
Garrett said his officers are arresting or giving citations to chronic offenders, usually for public drunkenness, indecent exposure or trespassing.
Homeless advocates say the increased prosecution is only compounding the issue of homelessness, not helping it.
“We’re committed to a positive relationship with the police department — at the same time, their current policies… are resulting in an exacerbation of poverty through a waste of tax dollars by giving people citations and jail time for trying to survive,” said Matt Leber, organizer of the Nashville Homeless Power Project.
He claims that pressure on the police department from the Nashville Downtown Partnership, a nonprofit management organization aimed at improving downtown, and businesses has led to the “quality of life” initiative.
Garrett said he had received complaints from tourists, residential citizens and businesses.
Cindy Demuth said she has been homeless since April and was arrested a month ago for trespassing while sleeping in a parking garage downtown.
“I was just trying to stay dry and warm,” Demuth said.
She said because she didn’t have identification, she ended up spending the night in jail and now, because police are spending more time downtown, it’s become increasingly hard to find a place to sleep.
“You can’t sleep anywhere anymore,” she said. “I actually have a pretty OK spot where I am now, but the hard part is if it rains.”
Garrett said he wants to help those chronic offenders — people who have been homeless for several years — “break the cycle” by providing them information on social services in town and transportation to shelters.
“We’ve got to help these people to break this cycle,” Garrett said. “If we don’t, they’ll die on the streets and I don’t want to find another body on the street.”
Since August, police officers have offered to assist 668 individuals out of the downtown area by referring them to a Metro social service agency or transporting them to shelters like the Nashville Rescue Mission or Room at the Inn.
Out of those, 558 declined the assistance.
“People don’t realize when they give food and clothing and money to somebody that’s living on the street they’re enabling them to die on the street,” Garrett said. “I don’t want to find the next body frozen under a wool blanket somebody gave them — it breaks my heart.”
Leber said he agreed that police are simply doing their job, but he wishes someone would publicly recognize that the initiative “is wasting tax dollars when we could use half that money to house double the amount of people.”
Police officials said they’re watching closely a bill proposed by Metro Councilman Walter Hunt that would ban “aggressive” panhandling — defined as the personal solicitation of money that “would cause a reasonable person to believe that the person is being threatened with imminent bodily injury.”
The Homeless Power Project accused the Council of carrying an anti-homeless and anti-poor agenda when the bill came before the Council for the first time this year at its last meeting.
The bill is up for a second reading at next week’s Metro Council meeting.
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You would think the police would be as aggressive getting the drugs off the streets than badgering the homeless.Since addicitons is one of the reasons people end up homeless you'd think they do more to eliminate the cause, but not the MNPD. The drugs are there daily so there will be more homeless in the future.They could transport all the homeless to Bredesens new party bunker as he says it's for the people. This would get them out of downtown, they'd have a warm place to sleep.The police are doing this for the business owners only. They could care less about the neighborhoods and the crime going on there. Juvenile crime has increased 90% since last time this year and the cops are picking on the homeless.Can anyone say MORONS?
BADCOPS, you are probably right. Money always has and always will do the talking. There are major dollars being invested in getting people to move downtown. These developers have hit a wall due to the homeless community that appears to be several hundred strong in the downtown area. After a early morning tour of downtown this summer and a after dark tour of downtown my interest in moving downtown was stopped cold by these people. They may be harmless but you will never get a reference from me.
Why don't Leber and some of these groups do something to help the homeless?See the numbers of those that refused a ride to some help?
The three stooges are up early this morning. Get your complaining quota in early, no wait, you do that 24/7.
Now there are 4 stooges TIT. I agree with my other 3 it's always about the money and not the people of Davidson. That has proven itself time and time again. Until one gets to the ROOT of the problem or the cause there will never be a cure or a solution. These politicians tap dance around the real issues.Then again if they didn't produce the numbers of the poor, the crime etc then there would be less government grants coming into the city.Glad to be the 4th stooge at least we have the truth behind us. Was that TIT or TWIT?Sorry but you asked for it.
This is good news, but the police need to focus on the rising trend of neighborhood crime and murders, a very troubling fact for Nashville.
The homeless DO NOT have the right to harrass people living, visiting or working downtown. It does not help their situation; the practice only helps perpetuate the condition they currently live in. Like a lot of people, they simply find the status quo the path of least resistance. To say this is about money is ridiculous; it's about safety and quality of life for those of us who care about downtown and have joined to make it a successful place to live, play & work. Yes, we do pay a premium to live downtown. Therefore, we deserve a neighborhood free of obnoxious people constantly in our face. For the one talking about getting drugs off the street, that is EXACTLY one of the benefits of the current campaign. The homeless are more often than not use drugs and alcohol (also a drug) to excess. Those who are legitimately homeless accept the help they need to alleviate their situation. The people who are being arrested don't want help. They just want to continue being pests.
Once again Matt Leber just don’t get it. Letting people sleep in alleys and parking ramps is not enabling them to “just survive”. It is setting them on a path to a sometimes not so slow a death.
Titan1, we all respect your loyalty to the Titans, but ease up on political & monetary events,you aren't quite ready for anything intellectual.
Leber "gets it" alright his job is to destroy the quality of life of this city/country so we will embrase the organization of communism where they will take care of all of us according to our needs.
"Quality of life violations include public drunkenness, indecent exposure and trespassing"? What about excessive Obeisity? It seems I'm being stalked by "fat women
Look if Matt Leber's momma needs a place to sleep why doesn't he reach in his wallet and fund it instead of harrassing the metro council? It appears to me the churches and Charities are quiet on this issue because they don't want to use their funds to care for these vagrants either.
Socrates,You make an excellent point. I also have one other beef with the churches; and it may sound mean spirited, even though I don't really mean it that way. The church folks want to think they are doing something to help the homeless.They drive downtown in their SUVs and other vehicles and drop food off on the streets. Then they go back to Brentwood and Hendersonville where their streets remain clean. I want the homeless to be fed; but I don't want to trip over the ham bones, etc. If they want to feed the homeless, they need to do it in their church basements. If not, they need to make contributions to the mission and other organizations who actually do feed these people.
Good points ROBBCHADWICK.People "dropping off" food to the homeless is actually an insult to them; similar to the way that people in Memphis used to save "special garbage" for the "garbage workers" in the years just before the famous "Memphis Garbage Workers Strike" in the 1950's. (I am a Man!) I'm glad I'm not currently homeless and I'm glad I'm Not in Tennessee.
So are we tharon.Now if you can find an Arkansas paper to post to it would be a wonderfull Christmas present for us.
I don't care what tactics they use to get rid of them, just do it. Send them all to live with this idiot Leber. Or better yet let him actually spend time with the stinking misreable lot he pretends to love so much.
Homelessness does not absolve anyone from their responsibility to obey the law or address their health issues such as addiction. It is not the police's responsibility to stop a drug or alcohol addict from using. It is the addict's responsibility. And if drug dealers would simply make their illegal activity as visible as those who are publicly intoxicated/exposing themselves and trespassing, I'm sure there would be a lot more of them moving through the revolving doors of the court system.Who do you want dominating the downtown area - homeless addicts or productive businesses, neighbors and tourists?Churches and charities seem quiet on this issue because nobody interviewed them for this article. Many, many churches in the mid-TN area work to address homelessness from behind the scenes as well as through partnerships with agencies that directly serve the homeless. Churches and charities are not in the business of dealing with public drunkeness and indecency or trespassing. Homeless people who are arrested for these violations tend to be, as Ms. Maynord's article clearly illustrates, people who refuse to accept help. There are many homeless people and families who benefit greatly from the services available in this area and who successfuly overcome the vicious trap of homelessness. There are also those that no matter what you try to do to help them, they will not help themselves. I, for one, do not believe in coddling people who will not help themselves.
LOL, Id.
A “consorted” effort? Is Don Aaron finally admitting what he does behind closed doors to keep that sinecure?A woman sleeping in a parking garage is trespassing? Who’s she hurting? Why doesn’t the city have social workers working directly & immediately w/ those dragged in by the police on these minor violations? If they’re homeless, and we’ve arrested them, then we should help them, place them at the top of the list for attention. After all, w/ arrest, they’re costing the county more than if they were housed.I like your idea, Badc. Let’s turn the Bredesens’ party bunker into a homeless shelter. Perhaps the Gores & Frists could find some space in their Belle Meade mansions, too.Robb, asking for a dollar is not harassment. I agree w/ you about the misguided “help” of some churches. Room at the Inn, however, is an excellent program that I hope more churches join.Grumpy, Matt Leber is suggesting—as are some voices here—that we spend more money helping the homeless, not arresting them. It’s true that many refuse to go to shelters, but there aren’t enough rooms at shelters, and many homeless people mistrust the police.
This makes for an interesting stroy prior to our visit. Street-people.com's street team will be in Nashville this coming week.Panhandling at Nashville’s Parthenon(Nashville, TN) – Street People will be panhandling this week outside the Parthenon, Ryman Auditorium and the nightclubs of Nashville’s live music scene and representatives from Street-people.com will be there to document the experience. Nashville and it’s diverse array of bums, panhandlers, hustlers, and street people will be the focus of a visit by Street-people.com. The unorthodox website features satirical stories about street people in various cities across the country. Street-people.com’s “Street team” will be in Nashville December 5 & 6, 2007 walking the streets, back alleys and tourist attractions of Nashville talking and taking pictures with the people who make their living on the street hustling change off tourist, collecting beer cans behind bars to earn money from recycling, or digging in the trashcans of local downtown restaurants for food. The interviews and photos will then be featured on the website where thousands of visitors daily enjoy the site’s offbeat take on those that are homeless. “Our road trips have become very popular with our readers” commented one of the founders. The street team has visited various cities including Boston, New Orleans, New York, and Hartford. “This will be our second tour of Nashville. Our first tour generated several unique stories and fans have asked us to follow up.” The website was created by two downtown office workers in Memphis, TN has developed a strange collection of followers. College students hosted the creators during a football game where the students held a Bum Olympics inspired by the site, sorority girls hoisted banners for the site on Good Morning America, and the creators have been offer monthly columns by magazines in Dallas and Memphis.“I think it is that we go beyond just getting pictures of the street people. We get stories behind that request for a dolla.” added the creators. “Being panhandled is something everyone that lives in a city understands. Our site is an outlet for that part of our culture showing that some people really need aid and others are just scam artist.” Under the banner of The Online Home for the Homeless, without the urine smell, the site questions whether the disheveled individuals who ask us for change are really in need or just scam artists.The site features a gallery of homeless people complete with photos and stories from “The Iceman” who peddles his bike 50 miles a day to collect cans because Top 40 radio made him quit his job, to “Wheelchair Will” who uses a wheelchair as a prop to garner sympathy and handfuls of change from passersby. The site has come under fire from charitable organizations as insensitive to the homeless. “We feel the site uses satire to talk about this social phenomenon and we plan to have an interesting visit. Our Nashville fans have already shared some characters that we will be on the lookout for when our team arrives for the visit this week.” # # #
Do you need to know what everything Hall does MJB? Since when is it you ability to understand the duties and requirements of the sheriff?How many homeless did you take in last night? How many did you give rides to shelters? How many did you feed, give money to, or consult with on how to get out of their situation? Since your ego would not let you disclose that to us here, my bet would be NONE! But in your socialist/communistic world “we” all need to help and give up what we work for to everyone YOU deem?!?!?!?!?!?I take full responsibility for who I am and what I do. While other people have and do affect my world, how I react to them and the actions I take are the difference we all are when it comes to our lot in life!!We as a society have an obligation to help those that need it. That does not mean support them forever. It also does not mean that everybody needs help. Some choose to be the way they are and some don’t want to make any effort to change, they just want the free ride. I doubt that in you little world MJB that you have any idea what a true socialist/communistic society does to the indigent. But maybe you should look it up!Oh, and stop being such a freaking hypocrite. It is really getting OLD!!!!!!
Thanks for the citation, Boxman. Street-people.com appears shallow, insensitive, semi-literate, & sophomoric. If I have the time, I'll read more into it, but there are many more important things to do than spend time at a website that sells advertising while exuding an aura of superiority toward the homeless & destitute.