Track pants hanging from a tree branch marked the mini-encampment that has grown up against the south side of Burlington City Hall since July 10. That’s when City Hall Park closed for reconstruction, displacing the homeless people who regularly gathered there.
“They did it on purpose,” groused a man who identified himself only as Dragon. As he fumed in a folding chair next to the sidewalk along Main Street last Friday, a tin can of cigarette butts at his side, tourists roamed Church Street, just steps away.
The occupation is a protest of the reconstruction, Dragon said, adding that he felt he was evicted for an unnecessary project. Next to him, a man in a wheelchair, who called himself Reuben James Bowen, agreed the project seemed designed to “get rid of homeless people.” Dragon said he doesn’t sleep next to city hall; he slips away to his tent in the woods, returning each morning. Others have been overnighting there, Dragon said.
Not for long, though. Turns out the people outside city hall will have to decamp again. Mayor Miro Weinberger told Seven Days that more construction fence would go up on Wednesday, August 14, as work on the park advances — rendering the small area off-limits. Residents have complained about fights, people blocking the sidewalk, and mattresses and chairs there, he said.
“At times police have responded; at times Street Outreach has responded” with the goal of “trying to encourage better behavior,” Weinberger said, referring to the Howard Center’s outreach team.
“The outreach people come out here all the time,” Bowen confirmed. “They just talk a bunch of horseshit.”
Empty beer cans in brown bags, along with clothing and a suitcase, littered the spot. A man stopped by, and Dragon ordered him to remove his stuff and a cushion that someone had used as a bathroom.
Both Dragon and Bowen said they avoid homeless shelters; Dragon cited “bogus rules” and “assholes.” Neither man works, they said. Bowen lives on disability payments and sometimes stays in motels.
“Frequently the people that you see spending time on the street, in that location, other locations in the downtown, are not homeless,” Weinberger said.
Burlington needs to keep working to house people who want housing, the mayor added, but it also needs to keep working on the mix of enforcement and supportive services designed to reduce problem behavior such as fights and and harassment.
The original print version of this article was headlined “No Place Is Home”
This article appears in The Animal Issue August 2019.
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So, what is it that keeps this city from getting its s**t together? Graft? Gross mismanagement? Inability to hit some critical threshold of functionality that will let it attract residents who are NOT transients with no skin in the game (whether those “transients” are homeless, college students, or rich tourists & snowbirds)?
So, what about people who DO live and work here year round, Miro? (Or at least try to work… I mean, ya can’t walk there without being harassed by bums, can’t drive there without the car bottoming out in potholes…)
I’d say “flush the whole city down the toilet and start over”, but we all know it’d just end up as untreated waste polluting the lake anyway.
D. Hudson.. Do you actually live and work in Burlington? They’re currently doing a TON of construction fixing your pothole complaint.. You seem to be pretty amped up. Instead of being a keyboard warrior and complaining on this website while you’re in your downtown office, pretending to work, and raking in paychecks.. (lol, sorry “bums”) how about coming up with some constructive concepts and bringing them to your next town meeting. If you have a problem with the bums and the potholes and the lake.. I invite you to get off your high horse and attempt to make a change. Either that or move. Just f-ing move.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IG4iYKryC8…
SevenDays breaks a cardinal journalistic rule by allowing these clowns to use fake names.
“Dragon” instantly loses credibility by lying about his given name.
And SevenDays makes a joke out of journalism by countenancing the fabrication.
Grow up, SevenDays.
If you can’t quote a source by his name, move on to someone legitimately identifiable who can offer credible and sober assessments.
To Paula Routly, founder of SevenDays, we say, “crack down on juvenile journalism.”
Any editors on duty?
Westward Hoooooo!
DrLxus; disagree, but all that’s well off topic.
And look, I *am* freshly peeved over the handling of the City Hall Park and people there. The elitism driving the park overhaul – and the further commitment of public money to boutique retail and tourism over basic infrastructure it represents – bugs the hell out of me. Let the homeless hang out there. Of course, public discourse on the issue in Burlington is just plain stupid, like a Fox News caricature of naive, moneyed liberalism made real. I don’t have a problem with panhandlers on the street, or people sleeping on benches (so long as they’re doing ok). Some of them may be my friends even if I have a day job. But I DO care about vomit on the sidewalk and passers by being sexually harassed or threatened. Being homeless doesn’t magically turn people into jerks, nor do drugs; there’s no excuse for the kind of behavior one gets treated to downtown in “regular person” clothes – except the justifiable, if misdirected, anger of people who I presume (because i’m empathic like that) use catcalls and violent antics as an outlet for their rage at bourgeois society.
All that needs doing is basic public works stuff, just without the Burlington idiocy, along with some state action. Enact and enforce basic ordinances with an eye to public decorum. Stop shuffling grant money around with BS projects. And come down hard on the small handful of local slumlords & university who drive the local rent crisis.
how about got off your ass and get a job dragon
The city is doing whatever it can to push out homelessness, but they are doing very little to end homelessness. Hiding the problem doesn’t make the problem not exist. We need more social programs to help people who are homeless or jobless or need somewhere to go. We need better low income housing. We need to start caring about the people and not just tourists and business owners. If people are upset about seeing homeless people wherever they go then they need to get their hands dirty, help this community, and help end the homelessness. People need to stop assuming they know the backstory of every homeless person and instead of seeing them as an eyesore see them as a neighbor in need
More social programs will only work if people want to use them. If the homless think the people coming out to help are talking bullshit and that shelters are bogus what good will throwing more money at the problem do? I know that’s not what every homeless person thinks or believes, and I’m glad there are programs and places out there that are trying to help. But you cant force help on people who don’t want it.
Weinberger….
How about coming up with some constructive concepts and bringing them to your next town meeting.
Not disagreeing with your post necessarily, but Burlington doesnt have town meetings. At least not in the sense that other towns in Vermont do. If youre talking about bringing a proposal to be voted on during city elections, Burlngton also has no citizen-sponsored ballot initiatives, no matter how many voters petition for the proposal.
“Rueben James Bowen”? Isn’t the Rueben James right across the street from there? So basically this winner is looking over the reporter’s shoulder and picking the first thing he sees as his name. “I’m Lamppost, Parking Meter Lamppost the Third to be exact, nice to meet you”.
Also, by “bogus rules” and “assholes” in homeless shelters I’m pretty confident we can assume the rule that has them upset is the “you can’t be high or get high in the shelter” rule.