Fearful that homeless residents might freeze to death or be killed in an accidental blaze, Baltimore officials descended on a shantytown under the Jones Falls Expressway yesterday in an effort to move vulnerable individuals to shelters or other types of housing.
"No trespassing" and "no camping" signs were posted at the encampment, and city officials and homeless advocates tried to persuade homeless individuals, some of whom suffer from mental illnesses, to leave their tarp-and-pallet-board structures.
City officials told homeless residents they have until tomorrow morning to leave. At that time, officials will tear down the shanties. Officials said they will not arrest individuals for violating the no-trespassing order, but homeless people said they have been arrested before for sleeping on public property.
Although about a dozen homeless people agreed to be taken to the winter shelter, at least 10 shantytown residents remained last night. The weather forecast calls for frigid temperatures and possible snowfall over the next few days.
"Everyone understands the dangers of the encampment," said Sterling Clifford, a spokesman for Mayor Sheila Dixon. "We are trying to do this in a very positive manner."
The push to relocate the homeless comes less than a week after the city opened its winter shelter and a few days after an article and editorial in The Sun spotlighted life in the shantytown as well as the city's diminished stock of shelter beds. Four shelters have shut down in recent months, leaving Baltimore with about 300 fewer beds than last year at this time. The city has also been slow creating permanent housing solutions for the homeless.
On Tuesday, a fire official inspected the shantytown on Guilford Avenue between Bath and Pleasant streets. He noted more than 20 "improvised" shelters, many of which were constructed with old camping tents, pieces of wood, tarps and blankets. The fire official said several occupants of the shanties were smoking inside them.
"The makeshift encampment is a fire hazard," fire Capt. Raymond C. O'Brocki III said in a memo to city officials. "If a fire should occur, the combustible building construction in concert with the lack of fire stops ... would endanger the occupants of the tiny, overcrowded structures."
Residents of another shantytown at Fayette and President streets will not be affected by the relocation effort as their shelters are on private property. "Bum Park," as the encampment is called, has been in existence for several years and is monitored in part by members of St. Vincent de Paul Roman Catholic Church.
