HOMELESS

an hour, or $40 for a half-day’s work, to clean up abandoned homeless camps in Columbus.

Franklin Township Trustee John Fleshman previously worked with Jordan’s Crossing, and the township donated money and loaned out dump trucks for that effort in March. The township saved both time and money in this arrangement, Fleshman said, and workers cleaned up more than 5,000 pounds of garbage

from three homeless camps along the Camp Chase multiuse trail in the Hilltop in four hours.

The homeless problem can’t be handled through arrests alone, Fleshman said.

“It’s better to give a hand up than a handout,” he said.

Jackie Miles, who has lived in Franklinton for 58 years and is a team coach with the Franklinton Litter League, says the proposed program is needed.

“I think it’ll give the homeless an opportunity to feel like they’re back into the community,” she said. “It

takes a village to bring hope and life back into the community.”

Fred Rieser founded Jordan’s Crossing nearly eight years ago after his son, Jordan, died in a car accident. Rieser needed a way to turn his pain into action, so he started feeding homeless people out of the back of his truck with his family on Friday nights.

Cleanup programs like this, Rieser said, are healing.

There’s “dignity in it,” he said of this effort and the earlier cleanup.