Description

A cardboard shanty was set up in Galvin Park this past week, near corner of First St and Greenwich Ave. Area quickly has filled with trash, feces and drug paraphernalia. This is unsanitary, a fire hazard AND much too close to other buildings. Park is too small for such an encampment, so children no longer can play here safely. City must relocate these people IMMEDIATELY where there is more room. Providing a SUPERVISED, PLANNED encampment over at West River Memorial Park (but farther from soccer field than the encampment Elicker bulldozed) with individual tents, porta-potties, simple food and drug counselling would be safer, more humane and afford such persons with more privacy and a bit more dignity than a cardboard shanty. For various reasons, such persons eschew homeless shelters, but are OK with living in tents, etc. Perhaps Columbus House or Amistad Catholic Worker house could provide some assistance, albeit without the features such persons or the current city administration find unacceptable.