During her time working with the Pekin Police Department, social worker Misti Cave believes they've made strides in assisting the unhoused individuals staying in the handful of camps along the Illinois River.
“The majority of the success that I've seen out of this population here in the last year, it really happens much more rapidly, much more quickly, when they gain regular access to food, laundry and shower services,” said Cave.
“So getting into a routine that gets them out of the camps and into the shelters, into the day shelter and the evening shelter, we see progress happen so much quicker when they make that move.”
Pekin officials remain committed to Cave’s outreach approach of connecting with the city's homeless population, saying a new policy prohibiting encampments on public property is a tool to help individuals find a path to stable housing.
“I think in a very short time, our social worker has had a lot of success, and I've heard a lot of positive with the fact that she has been able to reconnect some of these homeless people to assist them with their living situations,” said City Manager John Dossey.
Last month, the Pekin City Council passed its ordinance prohibiting unauthorized camping on public property, as well as the storage of personal possessions. The move follows a U.S. Supreme Court decision permitting such an ordinance.
Pekin Police Chief Seth Ranney said the ordinance isn't meant to make things harder for people facing difficult circumstances.
“What we've been doing for the last year, post-ordinance, nothing changes,” said Ranney. “We're going to continue to do what we do. The ordinance was never intended as a punitive measure. It just gives us the legal authority to go on public property and remove structures and clean up property that doesn't need to be there.”
Ranney said they haven't yet started clearing out camps, but have started contacting people at the campsites to let them know what is coming.
“What we're currently doing is going out, like we have for the past year, making contact with our individuals that are experiencing homelessness or are in an unhoused status — letting them know about the ordinance, educating them on what our plan is as far as moving forward,” said Ranney.
“We're just giving them notice that eventually we're going to be coming down there, that we will be removing structures. But we're working with them on coordinating services and any assistance that they may need to try to get housed.”
Dossey said the move to prohibit homeless encampments is a matter of public safety.
“Our concern is the health and sanitation issues that it causes right now. I mean, you go to some of these campsites (and) you have, in essence, raw sewage that's there, and it's the garbage and the infestations and things that come with it. That's of a concern to the homeless person themselves, as well as the community,” said Dossey, adding some of the more elaborate dwellings can present major hazards.
“It's not just a pop tent that's going up, it's makeshift structures," he said. "They’re putting heating, where you worry about carbon monoxide and all those things. There's some makeshift electrical work that's illegal electrical access — that's dangerous. I mean, we've had incidents where they've accessed some high voltage panels that they've connected to, that we've had to go and take measures to secure.”
Estimating Pekin’s current homeless population at around 150, Cave said she’s making gradual progress in getting that number reduced.
“Just since last November, I have assisted about 20 people. Ten of those were for substance treatment; we placed four into mental health treatment, and I was able to place five unhoused individuals,” she said.
“Looking at the number of people that I was working with in those communities that have also found placement elsewhere, there were at least an additional 20 that found placement through either self-motivation, assistance from other agencies like the Pekin Outreach Center or the Phoenix Community (Development Services) or the Pekin Salvation Army. And then there's another 20-25 right now that are utilizing the Salvation Army's emergency shelter.”
Cave said many of the individuals at the camps already have started to relocate on their own.
“I try to go out to the encampments at least two to three times a month, and it did appear to me when we were out last that there was movement,” she said. “There were people that had already packed up some of their stuff and moved it to storage or other storage options, and there were other agencies as well that I had made known to them that had offered to help with packing, moving, transporting.
“So there are agencies in and around the area that have reached out to me and said, ‘Hey, listen, I've got bodies. You know, I've got people that are willing to help if that's what they're needing.’ So they were given a heads up about that so that they could take advantage of those kinds of resources, but a lot of them had already started doing that.”
Dossey said it’s important to note that enforcement of the ban on campsites will be a work in progress, and they intend to refine their interactions with the unhoused population as the need presents.
“I think people just need to understand that we're actually trying to get the resources in place and help the individuals to find an alternative to what this lifestyle is that they've chosen right now— some have chosen it, some have not— and try to help as many as we can. That's the key component, is we're trying to assist them versus punish them,” said Dossey.
Ranney said they've been coordinating with the Pekin Outreach Initiative and the Salvation Army, and encouraging individuals from the camps to utilize the shelters operated by those organizations.
“We've been working with them over the last couple weeks especially, and they will house any individual that we would be making contact with when we're taking down the encampments. They have plenty of space for them,” said Ranney, adding that if necessary, the police department will be able to help individuals with storage of their belongings.
“If it gets to the point where we start seeing numbers that are at their capacity, then we will be taking other measures. We have no desire or anything to try to make life harder on the individuals that are experiencing homelessness; that is absolutely not what we want to do. This is actually the polar opposite: We're trying to get them in a space that is healthier and much more sanitary and much more safe.”
The intent of the ban on campsites, he said, is not to criminalize homelessness, but rather to help individuals improve their situation. He said issuing fines for violating the ordinance to people with limited ability to pay them would only be a last resort.
“We just want to get back to being able to strike what I feel is a happy medium between the citizens, the businesses and the people that are experiencing these hard times,” he said. ‘We’ve got to do our best to work together. We are one community, and if we do that we will do our best to try to get where everybody feels safe and everybody's in the best place that they can be.”
