Having a roof over his head at night when temperatures dip into the 30s is “way better” than spending the night outdoors at North Grand Avenue and North Fifth streets, Alfonso Bland says.
Bland, 48, said he had been living and sleeping at a homeless encampment at the southeast corner of the Springfield intersection for the past several months.
He said he feels more hope for the future since he and about 10 other unhoused people who frequented the site moved into temporary quarters at a Springfield motel with the help of several social-service organizations.
Bland said he is looking forward to getting a state identification card and taking other steps to restart government benefits that could help him get into permanent housing.
The move for Bland and others who spent much of the spring, summer and part of the fall at the intersection, a situation that caused concern among nearby residents and businesses, took place on Nov. 15.
The voluntary move was months in the making, according to Ronetta Buckner, director of housing and harm reduction for nonprofit Phoenix Center.
She said she and Tim Veith, Phoenix Center public-health outreach assistant, spent that time checking in with people at the encampment, gaining their trust and encouraging them to take positive steps to deal with the many issues homeless people can face.
It’s unclear whether unhoused people will gather again at the former encampment site in the public right-of-way between a shopping mall and Fifth Street once weather conditions warm up, Buckner said.
The encampment has formed the past two to three years. It attracted sometimes 20 to 30 people, most of them not homeless but wanting to hang out with their friends at a site where donations of food frequently were dropped off for anyone to enjoy.
However, Buckner said the focused, coordinated effort this year is designed to prevent a recurrence of the encampment.
The encampment was a motivating factor for the Springfield City Council when it debated but never passed a proposed ordinance in September that would have made such living situations on public land illegal and made violators subject to as much as $750 in fines and two years in jail.
The Peoria City Council on Nov. 19 voted 6-5 to approve a similar ordinance in that central Illinois community after a four-hour special council meeting.
One of the Springfield ordinance’s sponsors, Ward 5 Ald. Lakeisha Purchase, ended up withdrawing the proposal from consideration.
She told Illinois Times on Nov. 25 that she plans to “revisit the language” in the proposed ordinance after talking with neighborhood associations in her north end ward and return to the council with a revised proposal at some point.
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The Springfield and Peoria proposals appeared to be triggered by a June ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court involving a city in Oregon. Several Illinois municipalities have adopted local laws on what is sometimes described as public camping by people who are unhoused.
Opponents of such laws say they are criminalizing poverty and homelessness and creating more barriers to people in stabilizing their lives and getting into safe housing.
The encampment at North Grand and North Fifth straddled the Enos Park and Lincoln Park neighborhoods.
“My neighborhoods are very vigilant,” Purchase said. “They don’t want to see anyone get hurt.”
The encampment this year was the site of a fatal drug overdose of a woman staying at the site and then a motorist who allegedly intentionally drove into a group of people Aug. 29.
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Purchase said she appreciated the work of the Phoenix Center staff members and Heartland HOUSED, which is using money from a $25,000 grant from Aetna to house and feed the clients at an undisclosed motel for 30 days and possibly longer.
Buckner said a cool-down in outside temperatures in recent weeks helped to make people staying at the encampment site more willing to get inside. Another factor, she said, was verbal and physical abuse from motorists driving by. The harassment for the unhoused at the site included being pelted with paint balls, Buckner said.
“All that was taking a toll on them,” she said.
The clients in the motel also are benefiting from case management and other social services from nonprofit Fifth Street Renaissance and nonprofit Treatment Alternatives for Safe Communities, or TASC, Buckner said.
Volunteers from Abundant Faith Church helped to remove and get rid of excess belongings left at the encampment site and across the street at the site of a shuttered restaurant after the unhoused people moved out. The disposal took place with the unhoused people’s blessing, Purchase said. The clients at the motel are happy, Buckner said, after checking in with some of them.
“There are so many barriers to them, but everybody was upbeat,” she said.
However, Robert LaBonte, owner of The Bicycle Doctor, 1037 N. Fifth St., is a block south of the encampment site and remains skeptical that the recent efforts by advocates for the unhoused will be successful.
“Once it’s spring again, they will be back,” he said.
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LaBonte said he supported the ordinance proposed by Purchase and Mayor Misty Buscher. He said the City Council is “a bunch of cowards and was unwilling to make a decision that clearly needed to be made.”
LaBonte said he is considering relocating his business because his customers have been “aggressively panhandled” by unhoused people wandering over from the encampment.
“That’s very intimidating to customers,” he said. “As a business owner, it’s not a good thing for us.”
Dean Olsen is a senior staff writer for Illinois Times. He can be reached at dolsen@illinoistimes.com, 217-679-7810 or x.com/DeanOlsenIT.
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This article appears in Winter Guide 2024.
My daughter died there and bc of them, ik I can’t even put a cross or anything bc of them. I’ve had odd and scary calls as well as people knocking like the swat team is at my door. I cannot wait until someone buys it, makes it private property, and gets the druggies honestly. SPD does nothing and she wouldn’t have been the first or last from what I hear. Do ont buy anything on the street guys- they’re plying it w fentanyl just for fun.