Lodi residents taking homeless issue to task
Frustrated residents are taking the homeless issue into their own hands.
Mark Armstrong, the general manager of the Lodi Grape Festival, will be holding a meeting Thursday at 6 p.m. in Jackson Hall at the Grape Festival grounds to discuss ways the issue can be rectified.
According to Armstrong, there have been numerous break-ins at the fairgrounds and a larger number of homeless people in the area.
“Instead of being a negative advocate all the time calling and complaining about it, I thought I’d get some of the businesses and people that are interested on the Eastside together and talk about solutions instead of just complaining about the problem,” he said. “I’d like to get people together and say what can we do to help each other and help the city.”
Armstrong said the overall goal is to get the city cleaned up again. The hope is that the meeting will lead to ideas that will help solve the problem.
Lodi resident and owner of Woodbridge Trucking Equipment Bradley Christy is also frustrated with the homeless problem and is looking forward to Thursday’s meeting. He recently posted several pictures on Facebook showing how bad the conditions have gotten at the homeless encampment under the Highway 99 Bridge coming into Lodi.
According to Christy, the homeless have cut holes in his fence which costs him a couple of hundred dollars to repair each time. He said they also went through and destroyed a motor he had on his property and added that they have stolen lumber and other materials from his business and other nearby businesses.
Christy said there is a whole community of homeless people living under the bridge in terrible conditions.
According to Christy, the homeless are urinating, defecating and throwing their dirty needles and trash into the nearby river which has him concerned about the quality of the water.
“It’s just a filthy mess,” Christy said. “With our drinking water coming out of the surface water plant down here in Lodi, it really does bother me. I know that they test and they treat it, but the amount of pollution going into the river from these guys is terrible. It smells like methane down there. It’s worse than the city dump. It’s terrible.”
Christy suggested that programs to assist the homeless should be cut because they are drawing more homeless people into the area.
He said Lodi has always had homeless people but the situation has gotten totally out of hand because the homeless have been given incentives to stick around and they don’t want to help themselves.
Salvation Army Major Mark Thielenhaus said there would be an issue whether there are services to assist the homeless or not.
“I have heard other people voice that concern before, the theory that we’re seeing more homeless because we offer more services,” Thielenhaus said. “Unfortunately, I think these issues are going to be an ongoing thing in every community, regardless of services.”
Thielenhaus said it could be perceived that services could invite the homeless to the area. However, he said the Salvation Army’s standards are high and they’re there to serve the homeless that want to get better.
“Although we do offer services to people on the edge of homelessness, I think this will always be an issue and we do a good job of helping people that want to step out of it,” Thielenhaus said.
Christy said when he visited the homeless camp under the Highway 99 bridge last Thursday to retrieve items stolen from his business, he met a homeless guy from Palo Alto. Christy is hoping that once the area under the bridge is cleaned up again that the city finds a way to keep the homeless from coming back.
Thielenhaus noted that the Salvation Army works alongside the Lodi Police Department and Caltrans when conducting sweeps of homeless encampments and was also excited to announce that the city recently hired a community liaison to help with the issue.