Without notice, city destroys active homeless site

When Wabash Valley Alliance created its homeless street outreach team in September, there was a new procedure established for Lafayette city workers:

Don't demolish a homeless camp site without first speaking with Kurt Harker and Adam Murphy.

Harker is leader of the outreach team — tasked with making first contact with the unsheltered homeless — and Murphy, an employee of the city's development department, is the point person for supporting homeless residents.

But after a page one photo in the Journal & Courier showed an active campsite in a patch of Lafayette woods during last month's Point-in-Time homeless count, city workers from outside Murphy's department descended on the site with no notice, demolishing it without Harker and Murphy's knowledge.

The occupant and his cat weren't there at the time. But he returned to find an empty patch of woods lined with broken trees where workers had destroyed his shack, purged the trash and hauled away his belongings.

"He's been through a lot," Harker said of the homeless man. "I think the word 'devastated' is not too strong to describe his emotional response to these recent events."

Harker said the man has temporary shelter but is in need of permanent housing.

Murphy declined to specify the city department involved, but said workers did not follow proper procedures and weren't aware that Harker had been working with the man for months to get him out of the shack and into housing.

Now the city is making a renewed effort to make sure its employees are on the same page when it comes to working with the outreach team, Murphy said.

"They thought it was an abandoned site," Murphy said. "A mistake was made in removing it, but we're actually doubling down to make sure camps aren't removed without talking to the (outreach) team first."

Since this story was first published online Thursday, several readers have reached out to support the man by donating supplies. Murphy and Harker are asking anyone who wishes to help to donate to the outreach team or to contact Harker at kharker@wvhmhc.org.

The campsite was featured in the Feb. 8 Journal & Courier and at JConline.com. But city workers knew of the camp's location long before the story ran, Murphy said, and Harker said he's seen city trucks drive by the site, slowing to eyeball the shack, while he talked to his client.

It's unclear why city workers mistook the site for abandoned. The J&C's online photo caption described the site as "an active homeless site in the woods south of Lafayette," while captions in print described it as a "shanty on Lafayette's south side" with evidence of recent occupation and as "a shack where a homeless person lives."

A white plastic bag in a nearby tree — which had served as a marker for the site — is now the only sign that the camp once existed.

Murphy said the man has been placed on the priority list to find shelter through the city's Shelter Plus Care program because of the incident. It's unclear how long it might take to find him housing.

Harker said this is the only such incident that has occurred since the Path team was created last year.

"This has kind of lit a little bit of a fire, put a spark into that process of getting him housing," Harker said. "There will consequently be a better spirit of cooperation between the city departments and our outreach program so that this kind of thing doesn't continue to happen."

What you can do

The man is in need of a sleeping bag, clothes and other items. To donate, contact case manager Kurt Harker by email at kharker@wvhmhc.org.

To donate to the homeless street outreach team write a check payable to the Lafayette Urban Enterprise Association with "PATH" in the memo line. Checks should be mailed to the Lafayette Urban Enterprise Association at 337 Columbia St., Lafayette, IN 47901.