'Everyone's just tired': City commission discusses nuisance properties, homelessness in Brunswick

Mar. 16—Brunswick Police Chief Kevin Jones summed up the police department's feelings on the issue of homelessness on Wednesday with the words "Everyone's just tired."

Jones ran down a litany of issues springing from homelessness during a panel discussion at the Brunswick City Commission's Wednesday meeting. The department answered 524 calls to The Well, a daytime hospitality center for the homeless on Gloucester Street, last year, and 123 to date this year.

Over 2% of all calls for service in the city originate from The Well, he said.

"Two percent doesn't sound like a lot, but if you calculate that into 34,000 calls for service, that's a pretty big number," Jones said.

Mayor Cosby Johnson asked how many calls from the area surrounding The Well could be attributed to people "radiated out" from it after it closes at 5 p.m.

"Anyone who rides down Gloucester Street, or Newcastle Street, to by Old City Hall, after dark, you'll have your answer," Jones responded.

Wednesday's meeting was not a forum to hear from the community, Johnson said, but he invited anyone with a solution to speak at the commission's next meeting on April 5.

The discussion sprang from the February stabbing of Matthew Milburn, 47, owner of Victorian Place Antiques at 1412 Gloucester St.

Brunswick police say he exited the front door of his business at around 1:30 p.m. on Feb. 27. According to police reports, Nathan Cook, 45, a homeless man, allegedly used a shard of glass from a broken mirror wrapped in Spanish moss and stabbed Milburn in the neck. Johnson noted that Cook had been arrested over 40 times in the past.

Milburn was in attendance at Wednesday's meeting.

It's not just The Well, Jones told the commission. The police department gets many calls to the area around Manna House, located at the corner of G Street and Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, as well as the Salvation Army at 1624 Reynolds St.

"I'm not putting the responsibility on Manna House, they provide a service, but when they're done feeding them, they disperse out from there," Jones said.

The same happens when The Well closes, he said, and trouble arises from there.

The department isn't without compassion for homeless people, he said, but it's a strain on the department's resources and frequently they cause damage to public property and private property alike.

It's rarer than confrontations and property damage, but a lot of drug use and prostitution occurs among the homeless as well, especially in Blythe Square, adjacent to First United Methodist Church's property. The Rev. Wright Culpepper, pastor of First UMC, is also the executive director of FaithWorks, which operates The Well.

"They would go there, it was dark at night, and they were either pimping out or doing drugs on a daily basis," Jones said.

Downtown business owners and visitors have daily run-ins with homeless people, he continued. At the end of last year, officers were called by the mother of a woman who was suffering from an overdose in Blythe Square but were too late. They watched her die before help could arrive.

"It just gets tiring," Jones said. "I'm not putting the blame on any one location or any people, especially not those trying to help the homeless, but they are dropped off there all the time."

He pointed the finger at other law enforcement agencies for bringing homeless people to Brunswick when they don't want to deal with them, including Camden County.

"I'm ashamed to say that, but the services here attract homeless, and the more services there are, the more it attracts," he said. "... Everyone's just tired."

Commissioner Felicia Harris commiserated with Jones, wondering why Brunswick had to shoulder the burden alone.

"Nobody on this dais is heartless ... people are going to come where the services are offered. My question is, why do all the services have to be offered in the city?" Harris asked.

She invited anyone who had a solution to bring it forward, and not to lay the problem at the feet of the government.

"The city officials, we aren't a fix-all to this," Harris said.

It's a problem for everyone, Glynn County, St. Simons Island, Jekyll Island and Sea Island, Commissioner Johnny Cason added.

Commissioner Julie Martin asked what the public could do to help.

"The key to that, ma'am, is the sooner the better," Jones said. "If you see something that looks hinkey — women's intuition, gut instinct — go ahead and call us."

If you see someone who looks off, is peaking through business windows, checking car doors, just call, he said.

The city commission wasn't ignoring the problem, Martin said. They'd met earlier Wednesday with people involved in helping the homeless in Savannah and Chatham County. It was educational, as the city and county have a coordinator above all homeless services and a universal intake system for people looking for those services. They're visiting the city in the near future to get a closer look.

Those representatives from Savannah did say that, no matter how many services you offer, some will not take advantage of them to get off the street, and the city needs a plan for them, Martin said.

Cason also asked Jones what good the city's anti-camping ordinance had done to address homelessness. Jones said the ordinance requires them to give someone camping out in a public space a warning first, meaning they just go and set up somewhere else.

"We shuffle them around sir. We could have charged them before ... but charging the homeless and putting them in jail isn't the answer," Jones said.

Johnson didn't want to solely focus on issues with homelessness and associated service, but also on other types of nuisances. He asked if the city could expedite some immediate action to "secure" abandoned homes or to address homes at which the owners create a noise nuisance or park a lot of derelict cars.

"I'd suggested we have sheets of plywood and board up those houses, the city do it if the owners want," Jones said.

City Attorney Brian Corry said he had discussed it with the city's code enforcement division.

"We have attempted to, on vacant properties, fast-track a municipal action to secure the properties and clear it," Corry said. "... There's just not money in the budget to go after properties on that basis."

The process for the government to force the issue and clean up a property on its own is long and requires several procedural steps that preclude much immediate action.

Commissioners also heard from the Rev. Brenda Inglehart, pastor of First Bryant Baptist Church at 1100 F St.

Her church has had to deal with people camping out around the property. People abandon cars on the property for days at a time, and they have to keep the car tags on church-owned vehicles locked inside when not in use, or they'll be stolen. It's not usual to have to call the cops to remove people from the steps on Sunday.

Trash, human feces and beer cans are common sights, deacons have to be ready to pressure wash the steps on short notice. Flower pots are bolted down to keep people from walking off with them. Since they can't be stolen, the pots are regularly used as urinals, she said.

The church is reluctant to schedule late-evening programs due to worried about safety, Inglehart continued, and her deacons have been accosted with weapons in the past.

Despite that, they welcome any of those on their property to service and offer them food and clothing.

"We have a responsibility to care for homeless people, despite the fact that the property is not respected," Inglehart said.

Later in the meeting, commissioners discussed imposing a new local law requiring all homelessness services providers to get a special permit from the city commission.

"While we're using planning and the zoning class to dictate where these types of services go, even in that zoning class, each zoning type would have to come before the city commission to seek a permit," Corry said. "... This is almost as if you're creating a new business classification.

The law would also create definitions and regulations in city code for homeless shelters.

Wednesday's discussion came during an ongoing 180-day moratorium on new shelters or expansions to shelters for homeless individuals, which the commission imposed in October.

In other business, the city commission heard from residents of the Urbana-Perry Park neighborhood about a development planned for 2307 Gloucester St.

Rhonda Waller, a UPP resident, said the developer of the planned apartment complex appears to be ignoring the concerns of the neighborhood.

She said the traffic flow and drainage systems are already poor. The neighborhood planning assembly has asked the developer to reduce density, she added, and have a GDOT traffic study done on the Gloucester corridor to determine the impact on traffic.

Johnson said he contacted the developer after getting the residents' comments, and the developer will send somebody to their next Neighborhood Planning Assembly meeting

Waller also read from comments sent by Urbana residents William Kitts and Bonyetta Brison-Kitts regarding the number of establishments selling alcohol in the neighborhood.

"We are not suggesting that Brunswick should be dry, but we have too many in this neighborhood," she read from Kitts' comments.

Johnson responded to that as well, saying the commission recognizes that the neighborhood is a hotspot of liquor stores and that the current set of elected city leaders has perhaps been the toughest on new alcohol license applications.

Commissioners also approved committing $25,000 to the local metropolitan planning organization. Glynn County would also pay $25,000 while the federal government will pitch in $200,000, said Public Works Director Garrow Alberson.

The funding will fund the organization and two studies, one to look at residential and commuter transportation and growth patterns to project what roadway upgrades will be necessary through 2050, and another to do the same for freight activity. The freight study is a new one, Alberson said, but the city and county previously funded a similar plan for non-freight transportation needs through 2045. This is an update to that.

"The freight plan is a plan that goes along with companies. ... It's a plan that digs down into the freight habits and movement through the city and county, through the (Georgia) Ports Authority, and how freight is moved in and out of the city to help us plan long-term for larger-scale roadways," Alberson said.