South Bend Councilman Henry Davis Jr. is calling on the city to better deal with its homeless population and a growing encampment that’s developed between two buildings on South Michigan Street.
Davis Jr. issued the following statement:
The City of South Bend is once again exploring ways to deal with its homeless population. Currently, there is a homeless encampment on South Michigan Street tucked in between two vacant buildings on a vacant lot on a major city corridor. The adjacent community is calling for governmental support and intervention.
“There must be a more reasonable response to the homeless situation on South Michigan Street. We can no longer put humans during a pandemic in harms way. The current Administration must have a desire and will to change what we are seeing and experiencing,” says Davis.
Councilmember Henry Davis, Jr., who is the representative of the 2nd District where this encampment exist has been getting emails and phone calls about this matter over that last several days. Residents and drivers are concerned about the health and safety of such an encampment. At the beginning of this pandemic the city Administration asked the Common Council for an allocation of $500k to handle unexpected expenses due to the Governor’s ban. However, the introduction of such dollars has not met the current need.
“There has been members of the faith community and other civic organizations that have raised their hands to support the development of chronic homelessness programming that could help rid this community of this most undesirable picture. This homeless encampment is dangerous, unsafe and unhealthy. I look forward to working with the Mayor and my council colleagues to inject revenue into robust programming to change this dark reality,” cited Davis.
