When removing homeless camps, don’t forget compassion and transparency | Opinion

When the needs of homeless residents conflict with the rights of the rest of the public, it’s imperative that local governments proceed with transparency, compassion and tough love. Richland is learning that lesson right now.

City officials recently closed most of Wye Park and part of Columbia Park next to the marina near Bateman Island. That wasn’t a decision reached lightly. Those parks have been popular places for homeless residents to camp. Displacing them meant disrupting people whose lives already are in a precarious state.

Yet the city must balance minimizing disruption to a vulnerable population with the needs of the entire community. Parks belong to everyone, and no one should feel threatened or worried that their car will be broken into while visiting one.

It’s not just people’s perceptions. Real, ongoing damage to public resources forced the city’s hand. The parks suffered graffiti and vandalism, including cutting down trees, a harm from which it will take many years to recover.

A member of the homeless assistance group Camo Dave Ministries put it particularly bluntly in a social media post. “Unfortunately, our homeless friends don’t always care for the local environment well or appreciate the effort or expense involved in supporting them,” he said.

As stewards of the public good, officials can’t let parks become no-go zones and the streets become garbage dumps.

That is where the tough love comes in. If people are trashing a public resource – any people – officials must hold them accountable and stop the destruction. That doesn’t have to mean arrests or citations – though it probably should in cases of repeat offenders – but it should mean exclusion from the area.

Richland’s shouldn’t have come as a surprise. The city pivoted toward more aggressive enforcement after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that communities could do so this summer.

And then compassion becomes paramount. Homeless residents camping in a park have nowhere obvious to go. It’s not as if there are safe, designated campsites or abundant shelter space in the Tri-Cities.

Open some public buildings for warming spots (especially important as the weather turns toward frigid Mid-Columbia winter). Convert unused city land into sanctioned campsites. Run collection drives for warm clothes and food. Provide information about where food is available. Make services available to help people find jobs, succeed in the struggle against substance and behavioral health issues, and transition out of homelessness.

Local cities and counties do some of this already, but the evidence is clear to all that more is needed to tackle the homelessness crisis. Serving and assisting the most in-need is a moral imperative, an instantiation of the duty to treat the least of our brothers and sisters with compassion and mercy.

The annual Point in Time count, which identifies unhoused people with the most critical needs in late January, found about 150 people living on the streets on in shelters this year, mostly in Benton County.

More than 5,000 people in the Tri-Cities area are homeless or are at risk of falling into homelessness. That larger number includes people in unstable housing, on housing assistance, living in their cars, couch surfing or in emergency shelters.

Nonprofit organizations fill some of the gap, but they, too, could also do more. They often become so narrowly focused on delivering services and advocating for the homeless, that they ignore the deleterious effects the homeless have on the community and the environment. Mobilizing to clean up trashed areas would go a long way toward engendering public support.

Perhaps churches could coordinate to host temporary campsites in their parking lots on a rotating basis.

Finally, transparency is critically important throughout this work, especially for the government. The public deserves to know what its leaders are doing not just to remove the homeless from problematic spots but also to help them. What is the strategic plan for closing parks, if there is one. When will the parks reopen? How will leaders ensure that the problems don’t return?

Homelessness is a horrible problem both for the people experiencing it and for the communities that suffer the ancillary effects of people living on the streets. Governments must strike a balance between the needs of each side. If they are tough, compassionate and transparent, they will have a much better chance of succeeding.