New development pushes homeless into downtown Des Moines

Tiffany Shearon has been living in a tent village near Central Iowa Shelter & Services in downtown Des Moines for the last month.

The 31-year-old used to stay along the Raccoon River — a wooded, out-of-the-way spot favored by the city's homeless. But that was before downtown's construction boom reached her tent door.

Hubbell Realty Co. has started clearing trees and brush from 75 acres south of Martin Luther King Jr. Parkway to make way for Gray's Station, a mixed-use development that will bring more than 1,100 housing units, retail shops and offices to a mostly vacant patch of land between downtown and Gray's Lake.

Preparing the site for construction has uprooted homeless people living in some of the city's long-standing camps, pushing Shearon and others into more highly visible areas and leaving city officials to grapple with the issue.

Christine Hensley, downtown's representative on the Des Moines City Council, said she has received numerous complaints about the pop-up campsite and homeless loitering near businesses.

"I know that we have a balance act with the homeless, but it seems to be out of balance right now, with more problems in the downtown — in Western Gateway — than what I've seen for quite a long time," Hensley said.

The city has posted "illegal occupancy" notices at the campsite along West Martin Luther King Jr. Parkway and eight other locations. Public works crews will begin clearing out the sites this week if the homeless do not move.

With Central Iowa Shelter & Services already operating above capacity, many are left wondering where they can turn.

"I have nowhere to go ... " Shearon said. "They say Des Moines is homeless-friendly, but it ain't, to be honest. It ain't."

Development expands, homeless relocate

Hubbell announced plans for Gray's Station in January. The massive development will cover most of the empty land south of Martin Luther King Jr. Parkway between Southwest 16th and Southwest 11th streets.

“It’s a huge project,” Rita Conner, an economic development coordinator for the city, said in July. “ ... It’s a small town, really.”

Townhouses and tightly packed single-family homes sit at the center of the development, surrounded by six- to eight-story buildings with some mix of apartments, condos or co-ops. Commercial developments with retailers or office space anchor opposite ends.

The former industrial site has sat vacant for years. Once owned by the Norfolk Southern Railroad, it has been described as being an eyesore by city leaders.

Hubbell began clearing trees in September.

"Whenever we're on a site and encounter homeless people, we're always very delicate and work to assist if a move was necessary," said Joe Pietruszynski, Hubbell's vice president of land development.

The company worked with the city's neighborhood inspection division to make contact with the homeless population living there. Informal reports show the city began posting notices to vacate in April.

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One area the homeless might have turned — the wooded hillside west of the MLK bridge over the Raccoon River — became subject to its own vacate order this fall.

Homeless camps had coexisted amicably with the Red Cross, partial owner of the wooded bank, since the 1990s, according to Mark Tauscheck, a spokesman for the agency.

That was true until a new group of campers moved in and started vandalizing and stealing from Red Cross vehicles and aggressively panhandling in the area, he said.

After a few out of control campfires and calls to the police, the city directed the Red Cross on Oct. 3 to clear out the property or be charged for the city to do so.

"The private hauler was down there for several days clearing out decades worth of trash," Tauscheck said. "But we're following the lead from the police and the city."

How Des Moines deals with homelessness

The homeless have traditionally set up camps among the wooded greenways that flank the city's rivers. It’s not technically legal, but the city only takes action when it receives complaints.

“If you’re not getting complaints, you just kind of… let it go along. But then there have been some safety issues. They’ve had propane tanks out there and fires have started — that’s a big problem," Hensley said.

Decisions about which camps the city decides to target — and when — are driven by complaints. In addition to the nine sites where vacate signs have already been posted, the city has seven more on its radar.

"They are trespassing," said Phil Delafield, Des Moines' community development director. "We’re trying not to criminalize homelessness. We’re not looking to arrest people or throw them in jail. But they still have to abide by the laws."

Charles Hill, managing attorney at Iowa Legal Aid, said courts across the country have upheld rulings that criminal action against homelessness is a violation of the Eighth Amendment, which protects against excessive fines and cruel and unusual punishment.

In 2015, the U.S. Department of Justice issued a brief in a case out of Boise that argued the Idaho city's law, which made it a crime for homeless people to sleep in public places when there was insufficient shelter space, was unconstitutional.

Rather than targeting homeless people, Des Moines' city code takes aim at the illegal "encroachment" of a homeless person's property, Hill said.

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Here's how it works: A city inspector follows up on complaints from citizens or city employees and posts a physical notice informing anyone “storing property” that they have 21 days to file an appeal or move it.

The inspector records the GPS coordinates of the camp so the city can determine who owns the parcel and is responsible for cleaning it. Local service providers and Iowa Legal Aid are notified of the city's plan to clear the property.

"The goal there is to make sure those that wish to avail themselves of the resources have the opportunity to do so and that they’re fairly represented," Delafield said.

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Most people clear out by the time city public works shows up with trucks to clean up the site, he said.

"A lot of stuff is abandoned. So we’ll find tents, garbage, propane tanks, fire remains, clothing, sleeping bags," Delafield said. "If there is something of obvious personal value, we try to set it aside in a place where they’ll find it."

For years, the city used similar rules to target junk cars, Hill said, but in 2012, it added language specifically aimed at campsites.

He challenged the law in 2013, representing three evicted homeless people. The Iowa Court of Appeals eventually sided with the city and the state Supreme Court declined to review the case.

"Des Moines could be a model for other cities on how to effectively remove the homeless population from tracts of land you don't want them on," Hill said.

The shelter is always full

The Central Iowa Shelter & Services has 214 beds — 150 year-round emergency beds and 64 overflow beds — but it has operated above capacity most nights since opening in 2012, said Melissa O'Neil, the shelter's executive director.

When the beds are full, the homeless sleep in chairs or with their heads on cafeteria tables, she said.

Some choose to sleep outdoors rather than inside the shelter's cramped quarters.

Tiffany Rice, a 28-year-old woman in the third trimester of her pregnancy, was one of the campers staying outside the shelter earlier this month.

"I've only been in (the shelter) not even a week and there's been nothing but stress on me," Rice said. "I know this isn't the safest place for a baby, but it's better than putting the baby in jeopardy in there."

There are 11 other emergency shelters in the Des Moines area, but most have requirements that residents must meet or they target a particular population. Hope Ministries' Bethel Mission on Sixth Avenue just north of downtown, for example, has 90 beds, but it only accepts men.

Rice said she selected Central Iowa Shelter & Services, or CISS for short, because it's co-ed and she could be close to her baby's father, who was staying with her in the pop-up campsite.

CISS is a "wet" shelter, meaning it accepts people who are intoxicated. Most programs don't allow individuals who are drunk or high on drugs. Sex offenders, people on probation or anyone fresh out of prison can all stay at the CISS shelter.

"If you're here, the worst of the worst has happened," O'Neil said.

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She says there is an upside to the homeless moving away from the rivers to more visible locations downtown.

"We now know where the unsheltered are — that’s always been a question," O'Neil said. "If they’re in my backyard, they are one step closer to actually coming in the facility, getting services and ending this."

The shelter does not do outreach to the homeless living in the outdoor camps, but it doesn't turn anyone away, she said.

"No one likes to see the tents around our facility or someone sleeping in the art park or in the parking ramps downtown," she said. But residents are starting to see "a very small percentage of people" who are unsheltered and choosing to be outside.

"This is a very complex issue — oftentimes swept under the rug — that no one really wants to talk about," O'Neil said.