OSHKOSH, Wis. (WFRV) – Advocates are raising concerns about the treatment of homeless individuals after rumblings of city and county officials trying to cut off access to a popular spot where they camp.
Behind the Orrin King building in Oshkosh there’s a green space and some grates used to ventilate the building. Over the last couple months, a group of homeless individuals have set up camp here saying this is one of the better outdoor options for them in the city.
“It’s close to the Salvation Army where the food is, it’s close to the police station where you’re safe,” said a woman who lives here named Jessica. “Everything is safe here.”
Homeless individuals tell Local 5 News the grates are key in terms of understanding why this is such a good spot. Warm air shoots out of the grates which helps keep them warm in the winter and then cool air comes out during the summer months.
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Winnebago County officials are now floating the idea of building a fence around those grates.
“We should be treated more like human beings not like a problem,” said Jon who lives behind the Orrin King building.
County officials said the reason they are considering fencing off the grates is because they’re a safety concern. A county official who works in the executive’s office said when people are living on and near the grates they drop items down into there by accident. This disrupts the buildings ventilation system creating an unsafe situation for those inside and outside of the building.
County officials also said they’re worried about drug paraphernalia in the area.
Community members who advocate for homeless individuals held a press conference behind the Orrin King building on Thursday afternoon. They said when they caught wind of the county’s plan to potentially fence off the grates, they were shocked.
“I was irate, I can’t even believe that that would be considered,” said Katie Olson who is the lead organizer for ESTHER which is a social justice organization in the Fox Valley. “Even talking about it is an injustice that we would spend county money (on this).”
Both officials with ESTHER and some of the people who live behind the Orrin King building say police officers have asked people there to find another place to go and have threatened to write citations.
ESTHER officials say telling homeless individuals to move is problematic because they could lose vital supplies like medications and they lose their established support networks.
“We should not penalize people for simply engaging in essential biological life sustaining activities such as sleeping and resting,” said an ESTHER official during the news conference.
Although the Orrin King building belongs to the county, the Oshkosh Police Department handles calls for service outside of it. A spokesperson for the Oshkosh Police Department said officers aren’t telling people who are camping out behind the Orrin King building that they need to find somewhere else to go.
“We have been working with other agencies and organizations for several years to assist Oshkosh’s homeless population, among these organizations are the Day-by- Day Warming Shelter and the Tiny House Village,” the police department spokesperson wrote to Local 5 News in an email. “We are currently a part of (along with other city departments) both short term and long term coalitions with the Oshkosh Area Community Foundation to come up with solutions and ideas for actionable ways to assist homeless individuals.”
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Oshkosh city manager Mark Rohloff said police have issued only one citation in the area of the Orrin King building in recent months. He said the citation went to a person who was playing a car radio very loud in the morning disrupting the homeless individuals who were trying to sleep.
He also said that the city police department hasn’t told anybody to leave the space.
“We don’t have a loitering ordinance and there’s no law against homelessness so it’s really about activity that disturbs public health or safety those are the things we will focus on and to date we haven’t had that,” said Rohloff.
Winnebago County has a no camping ordinance on county park property. However, the Orrin King building green space isn’t considered a park. A person in the county executive’s offices said they don’t oppose people living there and have not told any of the people there to find a new place to live.
Local 5 News filed a records request seeking information about recent interactions between officers and homeless individuals behind the Orrin King building. We’re hoping that this information will clear up whether police have told people that they have to find another place to stay.
A spokesperson for the Winnebago County Sheriff’s Office said their department has taken no law-enforcement action in that area.
Officials with ESTHER said they met with some county officials on Thursday afternoon before the news conference to discuss potential solutions. They said they have meetings scheduled for next week with other county and city officials.
An ESTHER official who spoke with Local 5 News said she’s cautiously optimistic that they’ll be able to find a solution that’s in the best interest of all parties involved.
They said that the homeless population in the area is increasing while affordable housing is decreasing. They said there’s about three times more people experiencing homelessness than there is beds at homeless shelters in the area.
“People have a right to exist whether they have money or if they have a job,” said Jon one of the individuals who lives outside the Orrin King building.
“There is nowhere else for them, they’re here because there’s nowhere else for them to go,” said Olson.
First Presbyterian Church officials said they also were allowing homeless people to camp out on their property, but the city said they could no longer do that because the church property isn’t zoned to allow camping.
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