Police, city crews roust homeless in Modesto park

A cleanup Thursday morning at Beard Brook Park along Dry Creek southeast of downtown Modesto targeted about 20 illegal campsites. Police posted notices Monday that the “squatter camps” violate the law, warning the homeless to gather their belongings and move on.

What remained Thursday morning was considered abandoned and removed by city waste crews, said Lt. Brandon Gillespie. Police and social service outreach workers also informed the homeless of available resources. Officers distributed a brochure that gives information on where to get free meals, food, clothing, medical treatment, recovery help and housing.

Such cleanups have been conducted at the park every few months, Gillespie said, only to have campers return. The difference this time is that police will visit the park more frequently – at least once a week – to see that camps aren’t re-established, he said.

Some homeless, he added, have heard, and believed, they can legally camp at the park. Partly because of free lunches offered there and Church in the Park services, “this has become known as the place to come camp,” Gillespie said.

“This process is not to punish or pick on people who are in a tough situation,” said the lieutenant. Police and city leaders know there are a lot of issues – from drug and alcohol dependency to mental illness to being “down on their luck” – that lead to homelessness, he said. “That’s why there are people down here offering services.”

Several of the homeless leaving the park Thursday said they didn’t know where they would go because they’re unwilling to part with pets that prevent them from using shelter services. Gillespie said that reason is given by 60 percent to 70 percent of the homeless whom officers encounter. But Officer Michael Hammond said alcoholism and drug addiction also are common barriers. People can’t or won’t comply with the conditions placed upon them by shelter operators.

“I’ve given up certain places (to live) because they wouldn’t take dogs,” said 59-year-old diabetic Sheri Delise, who lost a leg and uses a wheelchair. “It’s terrible to think you would give up housing for dogs, but they become much more than dogs.”

She was leaving the park with her two dogs that came close to being taken by animal control for not being leashed.

Delise said she’s lived in the park about a year. She’d like to find an apartment, she said, but she’s been unable to save the first and last months’ rent required as a deposit by most landlords. She has some income from SSI and disability, Delise said, but “I use it to buy prescriptions and hygiene, buy food, pay for rides – it all takes money.”

Cited several times for illegal camping, she said police have made it clear she and other homeless can’t set up camps again at Beard Brook. “Just because I needed a place to rest my head, I’m a criminal now,” she said.

Delise was leaving Beard Brook with friends Anna and Robert Fisher. The couple had in tow two dogs of their own, plus two cats, one of which gave birth to four kittens just a couple of weeks ago. The Fishers have lived in the park almost two years, they said.

A friend is looking after their belongings, but they didn’t know where they’d stay. “Where do they expect us to go, really?” Anna Fisher, 33, said. Sacramento has been moving toward establishing a tent city and has more job and health programs for the homeless, she said, “but I have a 7-year-old with a guardian here. I’m not going to leave town, leave him behind.”

There are people who make messes and cause problems in the park, but she and her husband aren’t among them, and they feel safe enough, Fisher said. “They say there’s a lot of crime in this park, but there isn’t. … We have each other’s backs.”

Gillespie disagreed. “We’ve had rapes and violent crime here,” he said. There’s also drug and alcohol abuse, which puts the homeless and others at risk. There are big encampments on the Dry Creek banks.

“There are a lot of health and safety concerns for the people who live here. It’s a biohazard.”

The city has been giving outreach workers more notice of when a park cleanup will occur, Gillespie said, so they can help the evicted homeless before the last minute. “My hope is that with the homelessness coalition and Focus on Prevention making great strides, we will slowly but surely have more options,” he said.

Among the outreach workers at Beard Brook on Thursday was Randy Limburg of Telecare Recovery Access Center. Eight years sober, he said he’s among those people who kicked addiction partly thanks to police engaging him over and over, prodding him to get his life together. Now he sits at the table with police and fellow service providers to determine how best to help the homeless.

How his parents viewed him also got him out of addiction. Limburg said. “My dad told me I was putting his wife to bed with tears in her eyes every night,” he said. The remark angered him at the time. “How dare he?” Limburg recalls thinking. But his proudest day was when he went home sober to see her. When his mother lay dying, he said, “Her last words to me were, ‘I’m proud of you.’ ”

Limburg said he’s a resource to help people find roads to recovery. He helps get people back on the grid by obtaining identification cards, birth certificates and other necessary documents. Doing this work reminds him of “what is waiting for me if I turn around.”

Thursday, Limburg and Gillespie talked with 48-year-old Mike Lorang, a longtime meth user who said he’s trying to restart his career as a truck driver. Over the years, he occasionally had an apartment but more often called a truck home.

Gillespie said he has on several occasions pushed Lorang – who has a Class A driver’s license – to get the employment verification he needs to start working again. Lorang said he has the paperwork going now.

His driving force, he said, is his 9-year-old daughter, who lives in Riverbank. When he has overnight visits with her, he said, it’s at a motel, and his goal is to get on his feet and have an apartment.

“I’m out of excuses,” Lorang said. “It’s time for me to get off my butt and do it.”

This story was originally published April 21, 2016 at 11:00 AM with the headline "Police, city crews roust homeless in Modesto park."