What’s Happening & How to Help
– Clearing of encampments within the city limits has begun on a night with temperatures dropping to 28-degrees. This goes against the CDC guidelines for people experiencing homelessness during the pandemic.
– There is not capacity at Code Purple shelters for all the displaced campers. Code Purple is an agreement to address barriers to shelters during below-freezing temperatures, including curfews that impact workers.
– Ask Council members to be among those:
- Instructing staff not to enforce our ordinance around camping on public property.
- Amending the ordinance as recommended by the Human Relations Commission.
- Seek and consider other creative stop-gap measures and options for temporary, pop-up emergency shelters that is less expensive. For example, here is one option: https://www.wspa.com/news/local-news/spartanburg-seeing-increase-in-homelessness-city-taking-steps-to-help/. This is not a solution, but a possibility among many possibilities.
– Ask Commissioners to be among those:
- Committing to funding emergency shelter.
- Using sphere of influence to reach out to Council asking to pause dispersement of encampments.