A PROBLEM THAT CAN’T BE SOLVED ON ONE SHIFT
Woodland officer works with homeless people one-on-one in hopes of some success
It’s a little more than 45 minutes into the 11-hour Saturday shift of Woodland Police officer James Olsen when one learns that homelessness isn’t a problem that will be solved this day or any day soon.
“Baby steps,” Olsen says after talking to a man in the CVS parking lot with a scraggly brown beard who could be in his 30s or 40s.
Olsen knows the man and appears relaxed, holding his folded hands casually, or tucked into the belt loops of his echru-colored uniform. The man is sitting on a curb about 30 feet south of the Chevron gas station. He seems lucid and Olsen treats him as such.
He runs the man through a series of questions about his family, friends and whether he’s getting enough help, all while maintaining enough distance to prevent any trouble as well as prevent the spread of the coronavirus. Olsen is masked. The man isn’t.
But there isn’t any trouble and Olsen’s primary concern is what sort of plan the man has that day and whether he’s had enough to eat. Olsen offers him an apple and some almonds that he’s brought along for himself. The man quietly declines.
The man doesn’t have much of a plan for that day and Olsen urges him to get some assistance. He’s a military veteran and help would be available if he chooses to seek it. But, as Olsen later explains, he probably won’t. Nonetheless, Olsen makes some notes and is hopeful the city’s social services division will intercede.
It’s Olsen’s second stop of the day for a two-hour “ride along.” The need for physical distancing makes this an awkward interview with the writer following behind Olsen’s white Woodland police vehicle, a pickup with “HOMELESS OUTREACH STREET TEAM” painted on the side as well as the department’s web site and the vehicle’s identification number, 907.
The interior of the vehicle is not much different than a standard patrol unit. The pickup bed, however, has a rake, shovel, broom and tree-limb trimmer among other things.
Olsen typically works the weekends in his assignment for HOST. He joined the department in July 2017, being sworn in at City Hall by then Chief Luis Soler. Olsen is a Woodland native and attended Woodland High, where he participated in football, basketball and wresting.
After high school, Olsen attended Woodland Community College and took classes in criminal justice. Years later he put himself through a law enforcement academy offered by Yuba College during which he worked full time on the weekend and nights to support his family.
After completing the academy, Olsen moved to Idaho where he worked for a city police department before returning to Woodland in 2010. In 2016, Olsen re-enrolled in the Sacramento Regional Public Safety Training Center and later became a class commander and also earned honors for marksmanship and physical fitness.
Along with law enforcement, Olsen also worked in retail, which gave him management experience, something that Olsen says has come in handy from time to time as he talks to those he meets on the streets.
Although he’s assigned to HOST, that doesn’t mean he won’t get involved in other incidents. He’ll help out officers if needed, issue traffic citations, and generally, keep an eye out for crime.
He is also on constant call from Yolo County Dispatch and his first call on this day is to a dirt- and weed-filled lot just west of East Street at Beamer Street. Someone has been living near a car parked beneath some trees at the far northwest side, according to a person passing by.
Olsen makes his way through a fence gate that hasn’t been locked very well and slowly approaches the vehicle hands at his sides. It’s soon apparent there’s no one around and it appears as though the vehicle has been stolen at some point. It’s also obvious someone has been camping out nearby based on a camp stove, some ratty chairs and various food tins and other supplies.
But whether the person has permission to be there by the property owner or not isn’t known, so Olsen calls in his report to dispatchers and asks they make contact. It’s surprising, he said, how many times property owners do give their permission for people to live for on vacant lots.
While the visit doesn’t lead to a visit with anyone, Olsen spots an old shopping cart and makes notes so it can be retrieved later.
The man in the CVS parking lot isn’t breaking any laws either simply by his presence. But Olsen does what he can to urge the man to get motivated, move along, get a job, or anything to take better care of himself.
Later, Olsen says the man is enabled to a degree to remain in the area by people who will come by and give him food, or money. He tells the story of how a person behind a store off Court Street had a shopping cart in his possession confiscated.
It was only a short time later, Olsen relates, that someone who heard about the man losing his cart bought a small pull-cart and gave it to the man for his stuff. The man later sold the cart for the money. After telling the story, Olsen offers a smile behind his mask — which resembles an American flag and is constantly being tugged up over his nose — shrugs and then gets back into his pickup driving west on the lot to meet another man who has long white hair, and was sleeping near a green power transformer within sight of Main Street.
Once again, Olsen talks to the man — who has obviously been drinking — and tries to get him to focus on where he’s at and what he’s doing. Once again, Olsen also asks if the man has a plan for the day. The person appears to be unfocused and talks about getting a job.
Olsen is ready for this and tells him that work can be found in Woodland at a mattress recycling company. The man replies that he doesn’t have any ID. Olsen is ready for this as well and tells him that the city’s social services division can help with that. He takes the man’s name, talks to him some more, and then makes him pour out his liquor.
From there it’s on to a site behind Foy’s Bike Shop at the far-west end of Court Street. Olsen wants to check and see if some people who had been living in the area have moved on. They have and Olsen says while still seated in his pickup that he had trimmed some trees in the area recently so it made any transients more visible. It apparently worked and Olsen is pleased.
Then there’s a quick stop behind Les Schwab where some storage trailers are located on the rear portion of the lot. There’s a three-foot gap between the trailers and a cinderblock wall where Olsen has seen people hanging out. They’ve been there but not today. Olsen makes his way toward the rear of the trailers, stepping over debris — including a sign on the ground used to solicit money from someone who is out of work and ends with the words “God Bless.”
Then it’s off to a full-scale encampment off Hwy. 113 near Tanforan Avenue. It’s a shaded glen under the control of Caltrans that has about 20 homeless campsites. It could be occupied by 50 or more people, but the numbers are unknown.
It was only a couple of weeks ago that the Homeless Outreach Street Team documented 26 camps and cleaned up seven of them, including one near John Deere on East Main Street, and also worked with Caltrans and CHP to get parts of a large camp cleared that was near the overpass at Hwy 113 and I-5.
But it’s like this every week with another camp or camps, cleaned up and the residents moved along. It doesn’t matter, next week there will be still more camps.
On this day, Olsen is simply checking in. Olsen points to the steady line of camps tucked beneath the trees to the north and south. Since the property is under the jurisdiction of Caltrans it will require a multi-agency effort to clean it out and that isn’t scheduled anytime soon. When it is, the occupants will have to be formally notified first before dumpsters, heavy equipment and personnel are brought in to clean out the waste, and cut back the foliage so it will be more open. There are few people who can be seen at the camps and that leads Olsen to wander for a bit before encountering a fairly elaborate site. It’s powered by a solar cell that’s connected to a battery for power. There’s also a full porcelain bathtub beneath a tent and one of two men who lives there says he gets his hot water from a spigot at a nearby business.
Olsen seems to know one of the men and believes he’s one of those who is homeless by choice, which means he probably won’t use any services even if offered. Another younger man indicates he’s from out of town and may be passing through.
As Olsen continues looking about he finds an open tent labeled as being the property of the “City of Woodland.” Olsen doesn’t make a big deal of it but tells the men to take it down and pack it up so he can get it back to the city.
But he asks where they got the tent and is told it fell off the back of a truck. Olsen, nods, and tells them that on one of the sides of the canopy the logo for the “City of Trees” has been spraypainted over so it’s not visible. Neither of the men says they know anything about how it got that way.
Again, Olsen nods, takes a few photos and waits for the men to pack up the tent before walking with them as they carry it to his pickup parked a few hundred yards away.
While they’re walking away, a young woman who could be in her teens or early twenties emerges from another campsite dressed in red running shorts and white T-shirt. She stretches with her back turned to the departing Olsen, before walking a few feet, dropping her shorts and squatting.
As Olsen heads off to check out yet another possible site, it’s clear homelessness is not a problem that will be resolved anytime soon or only by Woodland’s HOST officers.