South Bend forces homeless camp to disperse, highlighting need for emergency housing

SOUTH BEND — Until Monday, Rich Mullenix and his wife were part of a group of about two dozen people living in a homeless camp that formed downtown over the past couple of weeks.

But by 9:30 that morning, a city truck was clawing up and dumping debris that remained from the camp. A few South Bend police officers stood by.

Most residents had gathered their things because homeless advocates knew what was coming. Some were able to find temporary housing through service providers, city officials said.

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Yet several who carted or carried away their belongings Monday told The Tribune they didn't know where to go next.

“I’ve been on the streets since I got out of prison in 2018," said Mullenix, who's 60. "They dropped me off right there in South Bend and said, 'Good luck.'

"I’ve asked for help over and over and over," he added. "I don’t know what to do. I mean, I’m doing the best I can.”

Nearly all of the residents had been sheltered through South Bend's weather amnesty program until it ended May 1, said Tracy Leliaert, a street outreach worker for Our Lady of the Road.

The camp was on a strip of grass in a narrow brick alley between Michigan and Main Streets, just south of the railroad tracks. Buildings run by the service providers Center for the Homeless and Our Lady of the Road are nearby.

But the 14 or so tents gathered on the small lot had become a public nuisance, according to South Bend code enforcement. The presence of litter, household appliances and furniture are among violations that constitute a nuisance, city code says.

The sliver of land on which residents pitched their tents is owned by Indiana Michigan Power, company spokeswoman Schnee Doyle said. The city received complaints from neighboring businesses, and I&M cooperated "to swiftly mitigate those concerns," the spokeswoman said.

"The city has an obligation to address the public health and public safety issues that large, unmanaged encampments bring, and cannot condone their formation,” Allison Zeithammer, a spokeswoman for South Bend Mayor James Mueller, said in a statement.

A sign posted on a nearby telephone pole gave residents a 48-hour notice to leave by 8 a.m. Monday, city officials said. Although Monday is typically a day off for them, Leliaert and some co-workers showed up to serve the residents breakfast and to help them move.

Robin Morris wore a backpack and pushed a shopping cart that held, among other things, a suitcase, a trash bag containing her tent and a plastic set of drawers. A friend walking in front of the cart pulled it along with one hand, the wheels rattling over the bricks paving the alley.

Morris said the scene was "pretty ugly" that morning. She's been living on the streets for a while as she waits to be approved for a housing voucher, which might get her into an apartment subsidized by the Housing Authority of South Bend.

All she could do Monday, though, was go and get some breakfast, she said.

“We have no idea where they’re gonna go," Leliaert said of the remaining residents. "Because where they’ve been at scattered sites in the past, those spots have been (demolished) and they have these permanent no-trespassing signs up now, so they don’t even get a warning like they did here today."

Looking across a field toward Morris, who pushed her shopping cart along a sidewalk, Leliaert said, "Robin, she’s probably just going to be nomadic and sleep in a doorway or wherever she can for the night."

How South Bend has addressed homelessness since 2020 homeless camps

Homeless advocates knew that tent encampments were the likely result of weather amnesty's closure, which happens annually on May 1. The scene Monday mirrored the repeated sweeps of camps that police and code enforcement did three years ago.

Since then, South Bend's response to homelessness has become more robust, the mayor's spokeswoman said. But a lack of low-income housing for poor residents means local homeless shelters are full, advocates say.

Earlier this year, the city gave $1.5 million to Motels4Now, a low-barrier shelter formed in 2020 that primarily houses people who are chronically homeless. The waitlist for that shelter is four to six months, according to Margie Pfeil, board president of Our Lady of the Road, which oversees Motels4Now.

“If we had more low-income housing and landlords to work with us," Pfeil said, "we could get people out of their tents and into the motel."

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The city also granted $1 million to Center for the Homeless for an expansion that will allow it to take over the weather amnesty program from Hope Ministries starting this fall.

Multiple South Bend Common Council members held a press conference earlier this month calling on the city to make weather amnesty a year-round service. But the Center for the Homeless has agreed to house unsheltered residents only for the winter months, from Nov. 1 through April.

"Weather Amnesty is a stop-gap measure to save lives during the harshest winter months and is not part of a longer-term solution," the mayor's spokeswoman said.

The city pays about $280,000 to operate weather amnesty each year, according to Caleb Bauer, executive director of community investment. The new shelter at Center for the Homeless will host about 75 emergency beds.

Advocates and residents at the scene of Monday's sweep said they were largely understanding of the city's enforcement action.

'I want a life'

But that does little to soothe the pangs of anxiety residents feel when they imagine how to break from a cycle of turmoil.

Lori Hamann, an at-large council member who is urging the mayor to support year-round weather amnesty, said she arrived just before 8 a.m. to a chaotic scene.

"It was very traumatic for these people," Hamann said. "Emotions were extremely high because they are aware that pretty much anywhere they relocate to, there's the potential of this happening over and over and over again."

Mullenix, one of the last residents to leave the scene, told The Tribune that he's been through it all.

He's suffered from drug addiction. He's been forced to leave certain homeless shelters, crippling whatever momentum he'd gained on the path toward a better life.

Removing his cap, he revealed a scabbed wound on his bald head, which he says he got earlier this spring when someone pistol-whipped him under a bridge. The streets have been rough the past two months, he said.

He's so fed up, his nerves so shot, that he finds himself crying every night.

Homelessness, he said, has come to feel like its own cage.

“I’ve been in prison for six years, and I’ve been on the streets for six years," he said. "So this is like prison to me again.

"I want a life," he added, his voice strained. "I want to sit on my porch with my wife and watch my grandchildren grow old. And I can’t do that now. My kids don’t even know I’m on the streets."

Email city reporter Jordan Smith at JTsmith@gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter: @jordantsmith09

This article originally appeared on South Bend Tribune: South Bend homeless camp shut down by police, code enforcement