Editor's note: This story was updated to reflect a clarification from the city.
Officers with the Springfield Police Department enacted the city’s homeless camp protocol this week at a large long-time homeless encampment in northeast Springfield.
Anywhere from 30 to 50 people were living in the wooded area behind what was once the Lurvey Courts motel cabins and a former site of a drive-in movie theater on Kearney Street.
According to the city’s protocol, which was established in 2014, officers give campers 24 to 48 hours’ notice to vacate. Officers also notify One Door, the central point of entry for coordinated intake of shelterless individuals, assessment and referrals for housing and shelter services. One Door then sends staff and advocates to the camp to offer services and help with moving.
In this case, though, officers gave the people three days to vacate the property. Officers notified the campers on Monday they had to leave the property by 8 a.m. Thursday.
Police enacted the protocol at the request of Building and Development Services.
According to the Greene County Assessor's website, the property — which appears to span over four different parcels — is owned by Lurvey Associates and the Lurvey, G C Residual Trust.
The property is a little over a mile to the east of what was known as “Tent City,” an 11-acre wooded area owned by Robert Lurvey that was a homeless camp off and on for decades. This property was finally cleared in 2018.
A message left Thursday for Robert Lurvey has not yet been returned.
Springfield’s Director of Public Information Cora Scott said city officials acted because it was a nuisance property case due to overgrown brush, vegetation and a large amount of trash. The property owner didn’t clean it up, so Building and Development Services took action, Scott wrote in a message.
Pastor: ‘It’s the biggest camp in town’
Connecting Grounds Pastor Christie Love, an advocate for the unsheltered, was among those notified by One Door that the campers were put on notice and she was asked to help. Love invited a Hauxeda reporter to come along Wednesday evening when she visited the property to offer assistance and give out vouchers to the Revive 66 Campground.
(The Revive 66 Campground is open Monday-Friday and offers teardrop trailers that can be rented for $10 a night.)
“We all knew it was probably going to happen,” Love said as she drove to the property. “I mean, it’s the biggest camp in town, but has kind of flown under the radar. They haven’t had a lot of issues out there, so it doesn’t always draw a lot of attention.”
Love expressed frustration there is no legal place for unsheltered people to sleep, and there are not enough shelter beds in Springfield to accommodate this growing population.
“The number of shelter beds in this city can do less than 20 percent of the need of the people on the streets,” she said. “And our shelter capacity is not increasing.”
Love recently requested city officials allow her to use her church building, which has operated as a cold-weather shelter since last fall, as a year-round transitional shelter.
Pastor, reporter find about 20 on property
Love pulled into the gravel area directly off Kearney Street, what was once the parking lot for the Lurvey Courts, and parked.
A few feet away, a couple named Cynthia and Jeff worked to cram their belongings into their vehicle. Cynthia was having trouble balancing due to a foot injury. Jeff said he has been struggling with his mental health lately and needs to seek help.
They said they were recently approved for a housing voucher that would help with rent, but they know it will be difficult to find a landlord to accept the voucher.
Love gave them vouchers to spend two nights at the Revive 66 campground.
“I wish I had answers,” Love told them. “I wish I had a safe place for you to go, a place for you to go and park.”
Young woman struggles to part with cats
Love and the reporter walked a bit farther onto the property and could hear a dog barking. The dog, a friendly lab mix named Wazoo, seemed to be warning his owner, Megan, that strangers were approaching.
Love made friends with Wazoo and introduced herself to Megan, who was slowly sorting through piles of clothes strewn about the woods. Megan said she has been living on the Lurvey property for five years.
It was just her, Wazoo and her two cats. Their tent was large and reinforced with boards and tarps. Inside was a rug, full-size bed and a chest of drawers. She kept a couple baseball bats by her bed.
Megan, 30, spoke softly and appeared to be in distress. Megan said she had no idea where she would go the following morning, she has no phone and that the encampment was the only place she felt safe.
Love spent several minutes talking with Megan, explaining about the Revive 66 Campground and where the Connecting Grounds Outreach Center is located. Love also talked to Megan about letting her two cats stay with a foster family for a while.
Megan struggled with this, but finally agreed it would be best if someone took her cats for the time being. After all, Megan would have to leave on foot, carrying her belongings and Wazoo’s leash.
Love called Paula Green, who has fostered pets for unsheltered people in the past. Green showed up 20 minutes later with her 15-year-old son, Anthony Carmichael.
Megan continued sorting the piles of clothes, taking out pieces she might be able to wear and carefully folding them into stacks.
‘We try to remove all the barriers we can’
Green watched Megan from a distance and said it’s important to be patient and understanding when people are going through a traumatic event — like having to leave what’s been your “home” for five years and lose most of your belongings.
“People who are experiencing trauma sometimes focus on little details as a way to block out what is going on,” Green said of Megan’s folding and sorting. “And it’s a way to take back some control.
“We see these emotional barriers. We have to address them because they are barriers to housing,” she continued. “It might sound silly to say, ‘I’ll foster your cats,’ but sometimes that is what they need to get someplace safe to sleep. We try to remove all the barriers we can, and then Christie does the heavy lifting.”
Megan finally left the clothing behind and went into her tent to say goodbye to the cats. She cradled them and cried for a long time before putting them in a crate. She then gave Green a T-shirt as a ‘thank you’ for taking care of her cats.
Love and the reporter walked to different areas of the Lurvey property, sometimes finding abandoned tents and sometimes finding clusters of people. Several of the “tents” were more like sturdy makeshift shacks with extra tarps, rugs and furniture. One camper had made a fence around his tent using wood pallets.
Abandoned vehicles were here and there. A few people were living in their vehicles, parked somewhere on the property.
Love said many of the people, like Megan, had been there for years.
All told, the Daily Citizen counted about 20 people and nine dogs who were still on the property Wednesday night. They were all aware that they had to leave by 8 a.m. Thursday.
Love offered each of them two vouchers for the campground and made sure they knew where the Outreach Center was located.
When Love asked a man named Matthew if there was anything she could do for him, he shook his head.
“Pray for us,” Matthew said.
Advocate appreciates police response
Since last summer, Greene County Sheriff Jim Arnott has personally led several “operations” in which he and deputies cleared homeless encampments with no notice and arrested people for trespassing. Arnott did not notify One Door before any of those operations, so service providers and advocates were unable to help the campers.
Love said she appreciates how in this recent case, the property owner(s) and Springfield Police Department gave the campers three days notice to vacate. She said several of the unsheltered people who were on the Lurvey property have said that officers were “very kind,” but they didn’t know of any shelter options.
“They just kept saying (to officers), ‘Where are we supposed to go?’ And PD’s standard is, ‘I don’t know, but you can’t stay here,’” Love said. “At some point, we’ve got to find an answer to that question.”
Now that there are 30-50 more unsheltered people who will be looking for places to get food and spend the night, Love said this puts an even greater strain on the few resources that are available in Springfield.
“That’s potentially 50 more people that our Grace (United Methodist Church) meal is now going to have to be prepared to feed,” she said. “That’s 50 more people that could potentially be at Vets (a daytime drop-in center in downtown Springfield), which is already busting at the seams and near fire code capacity. Our current social services that are doing the best they can are just completely stretched to the max.”
