Last Saturday I was on my to Lowes and going southbound on Bardstown. It had just rained most of the day before. The ground was wet and the air was as humid as Florida. I saw an individual lying on the grass in front of the McDonalds. I turned around in the Lowes parking lot to go and check on him.
When I pulled in I saw a male lying on the wet grass. He had on calf-high striped socks. He had no shoes. He had a backpack. he had a smartphone with a shattered screen. He was breathing. I called to him from about six feet and asked him if he was okay. He woke up. His question was:
I am thinking It's wet out, you have no shoes and the help you ask for is a cold drink? I ended up telling him that I could not help him.
I had not written about the homeless and panhandlers in the area for about one year and it was time again.
The Bardstown Road corridor in Bon Air continues to be a robust location for panhandlers. It has been such for as long as I have known the area. When I was a graduate student with an internship at Brooklawn in 1993, the southbound entrance off of the Watterson has always been a productive site for panhandlers with signs saying that they were homeless and that anything helps.
In the past 10 years, the panhandling has got a little more daring and it has spread down to Fegenbush. The panhandlers have been more brash and defiant of the revised ordinances. They are not supposed to be on the medians but they stand there anyway. Redirecting them off of the medians is not a priority of LMPD, so they will stay there as long as they are interested, and then they will fold up their sign and leave.
I have seen the same people over and over again at the intersection of Bardstown and the Watterson. From the stories I have heard from LMPD, they do not care about following the law to stay out of the median.
The panhandlers will occasionally be in parking lots until store staff or security will tell them to leave. Walmart has done an improved job of discouraging them. The Thorntons on the old Holiday Inn site still has them. Panhandlers will walk around in the back and approach people who have left the store.
My two recent Thorntons stories include a male who was walking fast holding a funnel asking for a few dollars for gas. It was a game that went like this:
Pandhandler: Sir, can you give me a few dollars for gas?
Me: If you can get your vehicle to the gas pump, I'll buy you some gas.
Panhandler: My truck is stuck over at the PLS.
Me: I have a gallon of gas right here.
Panhandler: My truck is a diesel.
The same guy approached me in the same fast-walking manner in front of the McMahan Dominos a few months later with a similar story and I offered to buy him gas if he could push it over to the Thorntons (it was like 200 feet away from where he said his truck was). He said that the truck was too big to push. I came away with the thought Dude you need a new story because you keep parking your "stalled" truck by gas stations. My theory is that his deal is meth because he was wearing shorts and a short sleeve shirt and he did not have any noticeable track marks.
I personally will not give out cash to panhandlers. I believe that giving them cash is just as good as handling it to a drug dealer. I might buy them in-kind goods if it is not too much of an inconvenience. I probably still get taken (like I have one time recently), but I will do something . . . just not give out cash.
Homeless Campsites
There has been suspicion of homeless campsites along the Beargrass south fork between Bardstown and Terrier Dr/Downing Way. There also has been a substantiated campsite north of Goldsmith on the vacant land behind the Thorntons and Pets Palace. I do not have firm information on whether any campsites exist, but if you see them, please 311 and report them.
Homeless campsites essentially are public health risks, especially now with COVID-19. I would not recommend approaching them.
Underlying causes
It is my gestalt that what has mainly driven panhandling is the drug epidemic. We saw some intensity prior to the pressure on the Economy Inn (now Budgetel) to clean things up. I plan on looking more at the number of emergency calls to the area to evaluate what is happening there, but I had some anecdotal information that the Economy Inn was a significant location where there were many people using and overdosing on Heroin. I am of the strong opinion that the Yaldos have made some effort to clean up the place, but I am still watching.
I have the fortune to talk to many homeless patients in my job who admitted that they panhandle when they are out in the community and there is an admission that they panhandle to get Alcohol and Drugs. The longer I have been in my current job and working with these people, I notice them out on the corners, including in this area.
I do not see COVID-19 as having pushed the panhandlers and homeless into the neighborhood. They were doing what they were doing before the pandemic.
If the homeless individuals on the corners are truly wanting help there are a significant number of well-organized services to the homeless downtown. You can look at them here Louisville Street Tips 2019. You can print out this pdf and if you want, you can give it to panhandlers who wave signs that they are homeless. (They are probably going to throw it away).
Even in this day of the COVID-19 pandemic, homeless individuals who have tested positive can go to a special shelter ran by the Salvation Army and Family Health Centers. The organizations in Louisville have done a very thoughtful job of putting this shelter together.
It is my opinion that Southeast Area Ministries (SEAM) is not an appropriate homeless service. They can do Dare to Care, rent assistance and utility assistance for area residents, but the scope of their service is limited. Otherwise their contact information is:
6500 Six Mile Ln. Ste A, Louisville, KY 40218. (502) 499-2059.
Over-using the word "Responsible"
Going back to my current work with the homeless patients in the hospital, I find that the chronic "homeless" who continue to panhandle stay in such a state for several reasons. The first is untreated mental illness; they will not stay on their medications and are impaired from focusing on being responsible to maintain a household. Second, they use drugs which further impairs them from focusing on being responsible to get off the streets. Third, there is a bit of sociopathy in which they are not necessarily interested in following rules and staying focused on doing what it takes to get off the street.
I get some of the same patients over and over again with medication non-compliance, drug issues and sociopathy. Some of them are high-utilizers of mental health services. Despite my critical analysis of them, as a social worker, I will endeavor to offer them a chance to get up to date with the homeless services and connect with the Family Health Centers to get a SPDAT assessment to see how they can qualify for available housing. For those homeless individuals with SSI, I continue to offer to get them in personal care homes, and they usually refuse because they want control of their check. I affirm their choices to stay the way they are.
However, I come away with the belief that if someone became homeless because of economic misfortune such as loss of a job, they will not stay homeless forever. They will rise from the ashes quickly because they will focus on what it takes to get back on their feet because they are responsible.
Some Concessions to Homeless People
Chronically homeless people are not necessarily nice to one another. They are reflective of the saying "There is no honor among thieves" as they will steal from each other and attack each other, and even at times kill each other. I am all for supporting the homeless services and encouraging the patients to be responsible in getting off the streets.
Coming back to Bon Air
When it comes to the homeless and panhandlers in Bon Air, I am all about trying to steer them back downtown. I would rather give them an actual bus ticket to go back downtown, but even my negative side says that they would only use it to come back to the neighborhood.
I think that some kind of city-wide campaign is in order to discourage giving to panhandlers is probably the best option since the only allowable law is a safety law where pedestrians cannot be on the medians and pedestrians cannot go out into the street. I think that people from outside the neighborhood who are passing through are more likely to give the panhandlers.
I still wonder about the guy who was laying on the ground in front of the McDonalds last week? I will take a look when I do the crime analysis this week.
When I pulled in I saw a male lying on the wet grass. He had on calf-high striped socks. He had no shoes. He had a backpack. he had a smartphone with a shattered screen. He was breathing. I called to him from about six feet and asked him if he was okay. He woke up. His question was:
Can you give me some change so I can get a cold drink?
I am thinking It's wet out, you have no shoes and the help you ask for is a cold drink? I ended up telling him that I could not help him.
I had not written about the homeless and panhandlers in the area for about one year and it was time again.
The Bardstown Road corridor in Bon Air continues to be a robust location for panhandlers. It has been such for as long as I have known the area. When I was a graduate student with an internship at Brooklawn in 1993, the southbound entrance off of the Watterson has always been a productive site for panhandlers with signs saying that they were homeless and that anything helps.
In the past 10 years, the panhandling has got a little more daring and it has spread down to Fegenbush. The panhandlers have been more brash and defiant of the revised ordinances. They are not supposed to be on the medians but they stand there anyway. Redirecting them off of the medians is not a priority of LMPD, so they will stay there as long as they are interested, and then they will fold up their sign and leave.
I have seen the same people over and over again at the intersection of Bardstown and the Watterson. From the stories I have heard from LMPD, they do not care about following the law to stay out of the median.
The panhandlers will occasionally be in parking lots until store staff or security will tell them to leave. Walmart has done an improved job of discouraging them. The Thorntons on the old Holiday Inn site still has them. Panhandlers will walk around in the back and approach people who have left the store.
My two recent Thorntons stories include a male who was walking fast holding a funnel asking for a few dollars for gas. It was a game that went like this:
Pandhandler: Sir, can you give me a few dollars for gas?
Me: If you can get your vehicle to the gas pump, I'll buy you some gas.
Panhandler: My truck is stuck over at the PLS.
Me: I have a gallon of gas right here.
Panhandler: My truck is a diesel.
The same guy approached me in the same fast-walking manner in front of the McMahan Dominos a few months later with a similar story and I offered to buy him gas if he could push it over to the Thorntons (it was like 200 feet away from where he said his truck was). He said that the truck was too big to push. I came away with the thought Dude you need a new story because you keep parking your "stalled" truck by gas stations. My theory is that his deal is meth because he was wearing shorts and a short sleeve shirt and he did not have any noticeable track marks.
I personally will not give out cash to panhandlers. I believe that giving them cash is just as good as handling it to a drug dealer. I might buy them in-kind goods if it is not too much of an inconvenience. I probably still get taken (like I have one time recently), but I will do something . . . just not give out cash.
Homeless Campsites
There has been suspicion of homeless campsites along the Beargrass south fork between Bardstown and Terrier Dr/Downing Way. There also has been a substantiated campsite north of Goldsmith on the vacant land behind the Thorntons and Pets Palace. I do not have firm information on whether any campsites exist, but if you see them, please 311 and report them.
Homeless campsites essentially are public health risks, especially now with COVID-19. I would not recommend approaching them.
Underlying causes
It is my gestalt that what has mainly driven panhandling is the drug epidemic. We saw some intensity prior to the pressure on the Economy Inn (now Budgetel) to clean things up. I plan on looking more at the number of emergency calls to the area to evaluate what is happening there, but I had some anecdotal information that the Economy Inn was a significant location where there were many people using and overdosing on Heroin. I am of the strong opinion that the Yaldos have made some effort to clean up the place, but I am still watching.
I have the fortune to talk to many homeless patients in my job who admitted that they panhandle when they are out in the community and there is an admission that they panhandle to get Alcohol and Drugs. The longer I have been in my current job and working with these people, I notice them out on the corners, including in this area.
I do not see COVID-19 as having pushed the panhandlers and homeless into the neighborhood. They were doing what they were doing before the pandemic.
If the homeless individuals on the corners are truly wanting help there are a significant number of well-organized services to the homeless downtown. You can look at them here Louisville Street Tips 2019. You can print out this pdf and if you want, you can give it to panhandlers who wave signs that they are homeless. (They are probably going to throw it away).
Even in this day of the COVID-19 pandemic, homeless individuals who have tested positive can go to a special shelter ran by the Salvation Army and Family Health Centers. The organizations in Louisville have done a very thoughtful job of putting this shelter together.
It is my opinion that Southeast Area Ministries (SEAM) is not an appropriate homeless service. They can do Dare to Care, rent assistance and utility assistance for area residents, but the scope of their service is limited. Otherwise their contact information is:
6500 Six Mile Ln. Ste A, Louisville, KY 40218. (502) 499-2059.
Over-using the word "Responsible"
Going back to my current work with the homeless patients in the hospital, I find that the chronic "homeless" who continue to panhandle stay in such a state for several reasons. The first is untreated mental illness; they will not stay on their medications and are impaired from focusing on being responsible to maintain a household. Second, they use drugs which further impairs them from focusing on being responsible to get off the streets. Third, there is a bit of sociopathy in which they are not necessarily interested in following rules and staying focused on doing what it takes to get off the street.
I get some of the same patients over and over again with medication non-compliance, drug issues and sociopathy. Some of them are high-utilizers of mental health services. Despite my critical analysis of them, as a social worker, I will endeavor to offer them a chance to get up to date with the homeless services and connect with the Family Health Centers to get a SPDAT assessment to see how they can qualify for available housing. For those homeless individuals with SSI, I continue to offer to get them in personal care homes, and they usually refuse because they want control of their check. I affirm their choices to stay the way they are.
However, I come away with the belief that if someone became homeless because of economic misfortune such as loss of a job, they will not stay homeless forever. They will rise from the ashes quickly because they will focus on what it takes to get back on their feet because they are responsible.
Some Concessions to Homeless People
Chronically homeless people are not necessarily nice to one another. They are reflective of the saying "There is no honor among thieves" as they will steal from each other and attack each other, and even at times kill each other. I am all for supporting the homeless services and encouraging the patients to be responsible in getting off the streets.
Coming back to Bon Air
When it comes to the homeless and panhandlers in Bon Air, I am all about trying to steer them back downtown. I would rather give them an actual bus ticket to go back downtown, but even my negative side says that they would only use it to come back to the neighborhood.
I think that some kind of city-wide campaign is in order to discourage giving to panhandlers is probably the best option since the only allowable law is a safety law where pedestrians cannot be on the medians and pedestrians cannot go out into the street. I think that people from outside the neighborhood who are passing through are more likely to give the panhandlers.
I still wonder about the guy who was laying on the ground in front of the McDonalds last week? I will take a look when I do the crime analysis this week.
