The Trenton Times published the following article on March 21, 2013. To read the full article, click here.

Trenton councilwoman demands police crack down on homeless encampments, tent cities

By Erin Duffy/The Times of Trenton 
on March 21, 2013 at 7:30 AM, updated March 21, 2013 at 9:57 AM

TRENTON — One city councilwoman is demanding the police department crack down on the homeless encampments cropping up around Trenton, especially with warm weather fast approaching.

“The situation with the encampments, instead of decreasing, it’s increasing,”
Councilwoman Marge Caldwell-Wilson told Police Director Ralph Rivera Jr. at Tuesday night’s council meeting. “We have a new one, under the Route 1 bridge going south to Morrisville. They’re harassing motorists. People drive on Route 1 and see a man every morning, buck naked, washing himself.”

Caldwell-Wilson said the city cannot continue tolerate the homeless people setting up camps and makeshift tent cities on city property.

“I know we don’t have the manpower but we have to send a message, that they can’t be out there panhandling, can’t be on city property, putting up tents, lying down,” she said.

But city officials said there’s little they can do: police and public works crews can kick the squatters out and clean up the sites, but it doesn’t stop the chronically homeless from setting up camp somewhere else or returning the next day.

“To simply move them from one area to another is not the answer,” business administrator Sam Hutchinson said.

“I agree 100 percent,” Rivera said. “We’ll go out, we’ll move them, they come back. (Public works director) Mr. Mollinedo gets garbage taken away, they bring in more garage. It’s not for a lack of effort. We’ll be out there at 8:30 tomorrow to do a clean-up there, but it’s not just a police matter. We can’t arrest everyone.”

Early yesterday morning a small public works crew was out at the site of one reported encampment off Market Street, near the Route 1 overpass, picking up trash. A police spokesman did not return calls yesterday on whether police had broken up the site before public works was sent in.

Caldwell-Wilson said city Health and Human Services workers had been dispatched to several camps to try to get residents hooked up with any social or medical services or one of the city’s homeless shelters, like the Rescue Mission.

“HHS has been there and offered their services, but these people don’t have to accept their services,” she said. “If they don’t, they must move, in so many days they must be out of there. Because we continue to say we’ll give them another chance. No, we need to put a stop to it now.”

She told Rivera his officers couldn’t keep ignoring the problem.

“I shouldn’t have to call you every. Patrol officers have to get out of their damn cars and tell them to move,” she said.

Contact Erin Duffy at (609) 989-5723 or eduffy@njtimes.com