By Debby Woodin
dwoodin@joplinglobe.com
Joplin has cleared out “Tent City” and bulldozed brush from a three-acre area around a downtown warehouse district known as a gathering place for homeless people.
David Hertzberg, the city’s public works director, said the city and the railroads are working together to clear a triangular-shaped tract under and south of the East Seventh Street viaduct.
He said the city is trying to limit vandalism and other problems by eliminating brush that hid activity in the area, and also create easier access for maintaining a main sewer line that runs through the property.
The city is using its employees and equipment to do the work, and the railroads are providing insurance along with safety flagging personnel to coordinate train engineers and work crews alongside the tracks.
With the brush cleared, the city can keep the area mowed, Hertzberg said.
The area is nicknamed “Tent City” because homeless people camp there. Drug and alcohol abusers also visit the area, according to police.
Police Chief Lane Roberts said the department has responded to a number of incidents in the area in the past.
“The kinds of reports we’ve been called to are varied: assaults, drinking, various code violations, intimidating behavior,” he said. “It runs the gamut, but it’s difficult to control because it’s off the beaten path.”
And, the area was hard to get to until the clearing work started, Roberts said.
He believes the cleanup will reduce those problems.
“It discourages the camping and the kind of activity that goes along with it,” he said.
Representatives of neighboring businesses spoke to the Joplin City Council about problems, especially when a homeless shelter was located in a warehouse in the area.
Mark Norton, manager of Great Southern Travel Services, 515 E. Seventh St., one of those businesses, said he favors the city’s efforts in the area.
“Our problems have gone down a lot” since the shelter operation moved from the warehouse area in August 2008, he said. “I think it’s gotten better. We still have seen people loitering around, but we have not had the problems we had then.”
Some homeless people, too, said they feared the problems in the area.
A homeless man who this week was visiting nearby Watered Gardens, a Christian outreach at 531 S. Kentucky Ave., said it was a dangerous area because “when there’s a lot of homeless people together, there’s no one to watch your back.”
Another person affiliated with Watered Gardens said no one has been camping “because the police took apart the camps and told everybody to stay away from there.”
Homelessness
A study of local homelessness and possible solutions has been completed by a city-appointed committee. Its recommendations, including an intake center and various types of housing, are waiting for an implementation plan.
