Encampment

It remains a mystery why Baltimore wishes to endanger the health and safety of people living in an encampment ("Homeless eviction plan criticized," March 5). Baltimore's "Ten Year Plan to End Homelessness" specifies an effective method to manage encampments: move the residents into permanent supportive housing without requiring them to use emergency shelters. This is the "Housing First" approach that the city adopted five years ago - and refuses to follow today. More than a decade of research has demonstrated the efficacy of the Housing First approach.

Standing outside his tent pitched on the sidewalk by a defunct downtown diner, Jimmy Stewart III wondered aloud where he'll sleep after city officials force him to leave Friday morning. The city is set to remove Stewart, 54, and a couple dozen other homeless people from their temporary homes on soggy mattresses along the Fallsway at makeshift campsites between parking spaces under the Jones Falls Expressway and inside tents huddled against the closed Hollywood Diner. It will be the fifth time in four years the city has forced him to move, Stewart said.

A month after being evicted from a park near the Inner Harbor, members of Occupy Baltimore sought Monday afternoon to establish a five-day encampment at the site of a proposed juvenile detention center in East Baltimore. As Maryland State Police watched, protestors began erecting a plywood structure — painted red and labeled "school" — on the site near the city's complex of jails and prisons. About 50 protestors were at the site by late afternoon. State police at the site would not say whether the five-day encampment would be allowed.

The security apparatus at a shopping center like The Mall in Columbia is designed to be as sophisticated as it is unobtrusive - off-hours training and drills to prepare employees for shootings and other calamities, surveillance cameras that can capture in real time suspicious persons or behavior. And yet, Darion Marcus Aguilar managed to arrive on Saturday morning at the Columbia mall with a shotgun in a bag and spend about an hour in the food court area before heading to the skate shop Zumiez where he would emerge from a dressing room to kill two employees and then himself.

Venus Wiles would rather sleep in a tent stuffed with blankets and all her worldly possessions on the side of the Jones Falls Expressway with her boyfriend, Michael Spence, than stay the night in an emergency shelter. The encampment - a collection of tents on a sliver of land between the northbound roadway of the JFX and the Fallsway, where as many as 18 homeless men and women live with their cats and dogs - feels more like home. Wiles and Spence say they don't know where they'll go Friday when the city plans to clear the site, which has been used by the homeless for the past five years.

Homeless advocates and a city councilwoman sharply criticized Monday a Rawlings-Blake administration plan to remove an encampment of about a dozen homeless people this week from under the Interstate 83 overpass in central Baltimore. But administration officials defended the move as a safety measure, designed to protect homeless men and women from a camp they say is overrun by drugs, alcohol and violence. "I'm concerned about the safety of the individuals in the encampment," Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake said Monday.

As a Friday deadline approaches, advocates are working to find housing for the homeless men and women living at a Baltimore encampment set to be cleared. Christina Flowers, president of Belvedere Homes, stopped by the site between Interstate 83 and the Fallsway on Wednesday with a promise to find housing for those who want it. She said her organization secured a three-bedroom house in the Harwood neighborhood to accommodate six of the roughly 18 men and women at the encampment. "At this point, it's just about being able to move forward," said Flowers, whose organization on North Charles Street provides housing for those who are homeless, suffer from disabilities or have a mental illness.

One of the great things about living in Carroll County is being close to historic sites.The most interesting to me are the Civil War battlefields at Gettysburg and Antietam.Gettysburg is not too far over the Pennsylvania line, which makes easy access for people in search of an informative day trip. It's nice to know that if the jaunt to Pennsylvania is a little too long for some people, there's an alternative right here in Carroll County.This weekend, the annual Civil War Encampment will take place from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday at Carroll County Farm Museum in Westminster.

Fur trading? Nah, they do that everywhere. Ferry boat transport? Historically important perhaps, but not terribly exciting. The search for a compelling new museum program led history aficionados in Havre de Grace to a swashbuckling conclusion with a strong local tie: pirates. "Pirates are becoming as big as Civil War re-enactors," said Rebecca Fitzgerald, executive director of the Susquehanna Museum. "There has been a resurgence and awareness of modern-day piracy, and the Pirates of the Caribbean movies have made it popular to be a pirate."

Fur trading? Nah, they do that everywhere. Ferry boat transport? Historically important perhaps, but not terribly exciting. The search for a compelling new museum program led history aficionados in Havre de Grace to a swashbuckling conclusion with a strong local tie: pirates. "Pirates are becoming as big as Civil War re-enactors," said Rebecca Fitzgerald, executive director of the Susquehanna Museum. "There has been a resurgence and awareness of modern-day piracy, and the Pirates of the Caribbean movies have made it popular to be a pirate."

Baltimore police say a man who was stabbed early Sunday at the entrance of the city's 24-hour emergency shelter has died. The adult male was seriously injured about 5:45 a.m., according to officials. In a statement, police spokesman Detective Vernon Davis said the man had been taken to Johns Hopkins Hospital, "but despite medical effort, he succumbed to his injuries. " Police have not identified the victim. Police said preliminary investigation suggested the victim and another person had an argument inside the shelter.

It remains a mystery why Baltimore wishes to endanger the health and safety of people living in an encampment ("Homeless eviction plan criticized," March 5). Baltimore's "Ten Year Plan to End Homelessness" specifies an effective method to manage encampments: move the residents into permanent supportive housing without requiring them to use emergency shelters. This is the "Housing First" approach that the city adopted five years ago - and refuses to follow today. More than a decade of research has demonstrated the efficacy of the Housing First approach.

Tracy Jones pounded a pair of sneakers against the wall of an Interstate 83 ramp, shaking off months of caked-on dirt. She tossed aside a long-sleeve shirt that had been chewed by a rat and packed up her few belongings Friday as a team of city workers razed the homeless encampment where she had lived with more than a dozen others. Jones and her husband, Charlie, finally were going home. "There's no feeling in the world like it," he said. The couple moved into a sparsely furnished rowhouse on Dumbarton Avenue, where they hope to rebuild their lives and be reunited with their four children, who were removed from their care.

As a Friday deadline approaches, advocates are working to find housing for the homeless men and women living at a Baltimore encampment set to be cleared. Christina Flowers, president of Belvedere Homes, stopped by the site between Interstate 83 and the Fallsway on Wednesday with a promise to find housing for those who want it. She said her organization secured a three-bedroom house in the Harwood neighborhood to accommodate six of the roughly 18 men and women at the encampment. "At this point, it's just about being able to move forward," said Flowers, whose organization on North Charles Street provides housing for those who are homeless, suffer from disabilities or have a mental illness.

Homeless advocates and a city councilwoman sharply criticized Monday a Rawlings-Blake administration plan to remove an encampment of about a dozen homeless people this week from under the Interstate 83 overpass in central Baltimore. But administration officials defended the move as a safety measure, designed to protect homeless men and women from a camp they say is overrun by drugs, alcohol and violence. "I'm concerned about the safety of the individuals in the encampment," Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake said Monday.

Venus Wiles would rather sleep in a tent stuffed with blankets and all her worldly possessions on the side of the Jones Falls Expressway with her boyfriend, Michael Spence, than stay the night in an emergency shelter. The encampment - a collection of tents on a sliver of land between the northbound roadway of the JFX and the Fallsway, where as many as 18 homeless men and women live with their cats and dogs - feels more like home. Wiles and Spence say they don't know where they'll go Friday when the city plans to clear the site, which has been used by the homeless for the past five years.

This weekend, 1,000 Revolutionary War reenactors from across the country will arrive at Mount Vernon, Va., to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Continental Line, an educational organization that re-creates Army units. Musket and artillery demonstrations, fife and drum performances and a variety of living-history activities will be featured throughout the encampment. The encampment runs 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday at Mount Vernon Estate and Gardens, 3200 Mount Vernon Memorial Highway, Mount Vernon.

The Mechanicsburg Nine of Pennsylvania will face the Elkton Eclipse Base Ball Club in a circa-1860s-style twi-night doubleheader on Saturday as one of the feature attractions of this year's Corbit's Charge Commemorative Weekend encampment in Westminster. The annual Union and Confederate encampment, which recalls the Civil War battle in Westminster, will be held Friday through Sunday on the grounds of 224 N. Center St. The two ball games — organized by the National Association of Base Ball Players, a group that preserves baseball as it was played in the 1800s — will be held there as well; the first beginning at 3 p.m. Saturday, and the second at 6 p.m. The games will be played under the rules of 1864: Team members play in an open field, not a diamond.

Those who rely on mainstream media to tell them what's happening can be forgiven for coming to the same opinion as ex-Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr., who wrote in his recent column "Capitalism on trial" (June 3) that the Occupy movement has disintegrated. While aggressive law enforcement has prevented Occupy in many cities from re-establishing a prolonged and public presence, activists have put their energy to use by linking with community and neighborhood activists to fight the most visible footprint of the speculative 1 percent: foreclosed-upon homes.