MADISON, Wis. – The dozens of homeless people living in an encampment at Madison’s Reindahl Park will be ordered to move by Sunday May 9, according to the city.
This comes after Madison forced evictions to those living at McPike Park earlier this year.
In 2020, Madison Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway signed an emergency order that would allow encampments under the proper guidelines. However Saturday, the city’s Community Development Director Jim O’Keefe said encampments are not the direction Madison wants to head in.
O’Keefe says much of the decision to order an eviction at Reindahl was driven by Madison’s Parks Department as well as neighbors in the area who wish to use the park again.
Others, however, say the evictions are not the solution.
“Moving people out of here doesn’t solve any problems,” said Sara Andrews, who says she’s served the homeless community since the fall of 2020. “It just moves the problem to another location and spreads the problem out.”
O’Keefe refused to interview, but said in a brief conversation Saturday that the city would rather those living in encampments to seek help from one of Madison’s homeless services providers.
EVICTION NOTICE:
The nearly 40 people living in a homeless encampment have until May 9th to clean up and leave, per the city of Madison.
Tonight on #News3Now at 10, why some say this is an unfair move. @WISCTV_News3 pic.twitter.com/KWqRb5xvDg
— Adam Duxter (@News3Adam) May 2, 2021
Andrews says many of the people living at McPike have moved to the Reindahl encampment. While the transition of evacuating McPike went smoothly, she says it’s because many of the homeless people considered Reindahl as a logical move. The May 9 eviction, however, offers no clear solution on where the homeless population can move.
“I think it’s just a lot of frustration both from the citizens that care about this issue, the people who actually live here and the organizations. They don’t have another solution to offer to this group of people,” Andrews said.
“Madison has kind of a history of sweeping these things under the rug, pushing them out of common view, just treating them very badly,” Andrews said. “It’s just not ok. It’s not okay to treat people badly. I feel like this decision makes the very difficult lives of the people who live here even more difficult. Asking people to constantly move their tents, set of new locations and figure out where resources are closer to them, figure out transportation needs is just cruel.”
COPYRIGHT 2021 BY CHANNEL 3000. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. THIS MATERIAL MAY NOT BE PUBLISHED, BROADCAST, REWRITTEN OR REDISTRIBUTED.