Lodians tackle city’s homeless dilemma

Gathering aims to kickstart solutions for homelessness

Members of the Lodi community gathered in Jackson Hall at the Lodi Grape Festival grounds Thursday night to discuss ways to handle the problem of homelessness in Lodi.

Those in attendance had the opportunity to hear from the Lodi Police Department, the California Highway Patrol and Caltrans on what those agencies are doing and how the public could help. They also were able to offer ideas in a freeform — and sometimes heated — debate.

According to Lodi Police Chief Tod Patterson, the police department is aware of Lodi’s homeless population and is trying to navigate it the best way it can with limited resources. He explained that in some cases, police end up encountering the same homeless residents over and over again. Once they are asked to leave one place, Patterson said, they turn up at another. In some circumstances, Patterson said, these people have the right to be where they are. They can’t be arrested if they are not under the influence or disturbing the peace, he said.

“We can ask them to move, but we have to be cautious too, because these people have rights,” he said.

Patterson told the crowd that the department has decided to hire officer Ryan Holz as a homeless liaison to help get the homeless off the street and into rehabilitation programs. According to Patterson, Holz will dedicate his time and efforts to issues relating to Lodi’s homeless population. Holz won’t officially start the job for another two and a half weeks.

Patterson said the department would like to patrol and clean under the Highway 99 bridge coming into Lodi, but doing so is very resource intensive.

In order to clean that area, he said, they have to post a 72-hour notice before they can remove anything.

“What a number of these people do when they have that 72 hours they grab the stuff that they want, the best stuff, and leave everything else,” he said. “These people (Caltrans) ... come in and clean it all up, (and) a day later they come back.”

He said the issue is that California Department of Transportation has several other pieces of state property to look after and cannot just focus on that one area all the time.

Skip Allum of Caltrans provided more details.

Last year in San Joaquin County alone, he said, Caltrans spent more than $160,000 and almost 3,000 man hours cleaning up 1,800 cubic yards of trash from homeless camps.

So far this year in San Joaquin County, it has spent a little more than $70,000 and just over 1,300 man hours to clean up more than 1,000 cubic yards of trash from homeless camps.

Caltrans has spent more than $3,000 and 168 man hours on the camp under the Highway 99 bridge.

Allum said these numbers reflect the clean up and doesn’t include the money and time it costs for fencing and structure repairs if they are destroyed.

Patterson commended those that are already involved with the homeless committees and suggested that more people become involved. He encouraged the public to educate themselves on assembly bills and senate bills when they are brought forward.

“There are a number of bills AB109, Prop. 47, Prop. 57. These people would be in jail right now had we voted for those,” he said.

Patterson said the department and Holz are going to have to work with everybody in the community to figure out what they can do to get the situation under control.

He told those attending the meeting that they were not alone and the issue bothered him too.

“I shouldn’t have to worry about stepping in feces when I’m walking around town,” he said. “That’s crazy. There is a number of things we have to look at to try to get this corrected.”

Patterson asked the public to be their eyes and to call when they see anything, because they can’t be everywhere.

“That’s how we have to all work together in order to get things done this is what we have to do,” he said.

Patterson admitted that several homeless people are drawn into the area because Lodi is a great city and there are a lot of helpful resources for the homeless. He told those attending the meeting that he visited Grace and Mercy Charitable Foundation before Christmas and spoke with at least 30 people that were eating there, and not one of them were from Lodi. Patterson said some homeless people are brought by ambulance. He said he even came across one individual who said he had a bus ticket from Denver.

According to Stockton CHP homeless liaison officer Doug Carraway, once a month he and Caltrans coordinate to clean up the areas where homeless people like to set up camp. He said he goes out ahead of time and posts the 72hour notices. They go in after the 72 hours and clean the areas. If the people are still there, he said they are cited for trespassing. Like Patterson, Carraway said the homeless

pull their stuff across the street, and wait for them to finish cleaning and then go back to the same spot and police and Caltrans don’t have the resources to double back to the area.

He said the other day, he went under the Highway 99 bridge and cited some of the homeless for trespassing but there is no room in the jails. He usually has a homeless advocate with him who provides services such as EBT cards and housing information, he said. However, some people don’t want the help.

“You can’t have dogs in the shelters. You cant have booze in the shelters. You can’t do drugs in the shelters. So some of them would rather be outside rather than go by these rules,” he said.

He said another issue they are running into is that if a homeless person is arrested, their property must also be stored.

By the end of the meeting, several ideas for handling the issue were offered by those in attendance. Ideas ranged from providing more resources to rehabilitate homeless residents to busing them out of the area. At several points, the discussion got heated and had to be called to order.

The group plans to meet again in a month to discuss more ideas.