Reply to Someone has started sleeping on the sidewalk next to our house

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Why does everyone in this thread think that calling the police equals sending a homeless person to jail? You do know that in DC police are trained as first contact people and know how to interface with people and the potential public agency that is required. There is a chance that if you call a nother number they will just call the police as their first contact people anyway.

About calling the3 non profit group, here is the issue. The person that is sleeping in your front yard does not want assistance for whatever reason. That does not mean they should not be offered assistance, but this city has more than enough shelter space for it homeless. However, there is always a certain percentage of homeless who simply do not want to be in a shelter for a variety of reasons. A lot of them believe it or not simply do not want to have their stuff taken from them which a lot of shelters cannot accommodate because of sanitation issues. Their is actually a lot of work being put into giving the homeless some sort of storage space to store their stuff. It looks like a room of locking supercans. It is one thing to have an old jacket thrown away, but another thing to have an old jacket with your drivers license or last pay stub thrown away.

Anyway, call the police. Have you ever spoken to a police officer? An MPD police officer? They get a LOT of training in interfacing with the unknown. Don't get your police perceptions from a few news stories.

Know that when the police arrive they are going to attempt to determine identification and the well being of the individual. Often times, because of the nature of homelessness, police will actually know the individual they are responding to. Often times a homeless person will have a card or contact on them from a shelter they may have visited before. The police will then contact the shelter and find out what the shelter knows.

One issue the city has is that there are not a lot of "day shelter" options. There are not a lot of places to roll up homeless with your stuff, get a shower and a cup of coffee and "tap into" city resources. The city has resources, but often times locating the appropriate interface is difficult or even not desired by the individual.

But back to the beginning, call the police. Friendship place is not rolling out to your front yard with a contact team to help your individual out.[/quote]

^ This OMG!

One other thing, how does Friendship Place interact with the homeless and the community during the day? I have neve seen a Friendship Place team interacting with a homeless person outside of their Tenley building. Never. If a homeless person needs a ride from wherever they are is there a Friendship Place van that picks them up? I just don't know how the actual rubber meets the road with them. Everybody in the community lauds them I just don't know how they actually interface. For example, I never see them talking to the people camped at the Tenleytown Library garage or the metro bike locker. Or the people pooping all over the Wilson pool benches. You would think that Friendship Place would have an immediate local impact. [/quote]

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