Pittsfield Health Board Mulls Camping Ordinance
PITTSFIELD, Mass.— The Board of Health wants to apply its expertise to the proposed public camping ordinance and curb negative effects on unhoused community members.
Later this month, the board will give its input to the City Council after requesting that it be included in the conversation.
"We have a mandate. It is a public health issue, and in that, I think we also can do some real good," Chair Roberta Elliott said during last week's BOH meeting.
The ordinance has sparked hours of public comment since it was brought forward months ago, and has been amended to remove criminalization language, change the fine structure, and add exceptions for people sleeping in cars or escaping danger.
Last month, councilors referred it to the board at its request. Health officials expect to provide regular communications at City Council meetings. They first spoke to Erin Forbush, ServiceNet's director of shelter and housing.
"I can put myself in the shoes of a business owner, and obviously have them be concerned. It's fair. I can also, because of the people I work with, know how they feel and what they're going through, and as the shelter provider, I also know what my limitations are, what I can do. So I think everybody has a role in this and can be upset by it," Forbush said.
She strongly opposed the previous criminalization language, "Because this is a community problem. This is a cultural problem."
"Capitalism is a part of our culture, and it has not worked for everybody," she explained.
"I'm not saying that we're going to change any of that, but there are pieces that are put in line that can keep people in disadvantaged spaces, and with rents going up, and less subsidies, that is keeping people in these spaces that they can't move from."
Forbush pointed out that some people sleep in the downtown area because it is near people and first responders, making them feel safer. She said it has become clear that the bad behaviors being cited in conversations about the ordinance are coming from a "very small" handful of people.
"They're causing issues for other people that are outside sleeping. Those folks aren't happy about some of the behavior either, but it's a small number, but we tend to make that everybody," she said.
Speaking to reports of people defecating in the downtown, she said the Health Department would be cleaning all day if every unhoused person were using the bathroom in public spaces.
"And part of it is, we don't have public restrooms, and specifically more so at night," she added.
ServiceNet operates The Pearl, where they cohabitate with the First United Methodist Church, two congregate family shelters, as well as some apartments that are used for sheltering. While the agency can accommodate more people than in the past, housing insecurity is increasing.
"It is a shelter that is full more than not," Forbush said about The Pearl, which has 40 beds.
It has a waitlist typically the same size as its capacity, plus more people who will need a place to stay in the winter. Forbush said she begins to panic about winter in August every year, especially around funding.
The past couple of years, ServiceNet has operated a warming center at The Pearl from 10 p.m. to 8 a.m.
"I'm just feeling like there are so many wonderful people working on lots of pieces of this, and the problem is just going to get bigger and bigger," Elliott said.
"We don't have enough beds. We can't fix the bed situation, but we can fix a conversation that the community can have about coming together and looking at what we can do if we can't put people in houses."
Forbush said people in Pittsfield are "very open," and it has been the easiest community to work in.
"We put a lot of energy into the ordinance, right? And the amount of energy we put there, if we put it to maybe either being more aware, being more open, and accepting, because this is a hard thing for people to accept," she said.
"We are not wired to watch suffering, so we just want to not watch it. So we just turn our backs to it, or governments have ordinances and laws, and that's the problem-solving."
When talking to shelter guests, she found that they widely don't feel accepted by the community, pointing to pushback when the project was being permitted around 2020.
Dr. Jeffrey Leppo observed that the camping issue is like "the nail sticking out of the floorboard."
"I really think that what I'm hearing is that one of the things that we can think about is, how can we, as the Board of Health, work at better trying to coordinate community action to make it a better way to try to address a clear community problem," he said.
Before its next meeting, a couple of members of the board will visit the Division of Community Care in Northampton to get a sense of what other communities are doing. Elliott, who previously spoke to a representative from the program, described it as "actually probably one of the most positive things I had heard in a while."
"The Division of Community Care (DCC) is a pioneering public health-led initiative to provide an additional response for community members who need immediate help with personal challenges," its website reads.
"The DCC operates with a person-centered and trauma-informed approach to provide emotional support, de-escalation, collaborative problem solving, advocacy, and resource connection for individuals experiencing homelessness, emotional distress, difficulty meeting basic needs, struggles with substance use, and conflict within the City of Northampton."
