Groups targeting homeless issues

FORT SMITH — Multiple agencies have banded together to empty riverside railroad tracks south of downtown Fort Smith of homeless camps and steer inhabitants to homeless services.

From talks that began last spring, the decision was made to remove the homeless people who have been living along the tracks and in the private railroad right of way, according to a Fort Smith news release.

Officials plan to have the homeless people in the area between South E Street and the Poteau River removed by Sept. 30 so the railroad can use a bush hog in the area and build a fence to keep people off railroad property.

Involved in the project are the city; the Fort Smith Police Department; police with the Arkansas and Missouri Railroad, Kansas City Southern Railroad and the Fort Smith Railroad; Riverview Hope Campus; Next Step Homeless Services; Community Rescue Mission; Salvation Army; and the United Way of Fort Smith Area.

City Administrator Carl Geffken called the homeless camps a risk management hazard for the city and the railroads, posing danger to the homeless people, railway workers, engineers and conductors.

“Working to break up the camps became unavoidable,” Geffken said. “Along our riverside railways,

homeless people pitch tents beneath railcars — cars about to move — between the wheels even.”

The police have approached the homeless people cautiously “with compassion and respect,” police Capt. Danny Baker said.

“We’ve been telling these people they have to move, but we haven’t gone out there looking to arrest anyone,” he said.

Police have been working with the Hope Campus, which is at Third and South E streets, and relying on staff members’ training in recognizing and handling people in crisis. They have been able to coax many people to agencies that provide assistance and services, the release said.

Some of the homeless people in that area continue living in the camps and have resisted the offers of assistance, the release said. Five or six people have been arrested.

About 60 men, women and children spend the night on any given day in something other than proper shelter, said Chris Joannides, executive director of the Hope Campus. Most homeless people are in that situation because they have suffered some sort of trauma such as illness, job loss, domestic violence, divorce or have mental illness or substance abuse problems, according to Joannides.

“This effort, peacefully driving these people to our shelter and others that can help, is working,” he said. “Several have come and stayed.”

The Hope Campus and other institutions in the Fort Smith area offer food and shelter and services such as counseling, education, medical care and job training.