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JACKSON, MI — Troy Wireman on Tuesday afternoon handed a new arrival a bottle of water.
Krista Toothman, recently ousted from an apartment at a nearby public housing complex, had been resting on the edge of the Jackson District Library lawn for several hours. He could tell she needed it.
“I’m here for the other people,” Wireman, 56, said.
“Don’t judge me for what I have done. Judge me for what I do.”
Wireman has lived about two years, on and off, outside the downtown library. He broke up with a girlfriend a decade or so ago and said he “went straight out on the streets.”
Tuesday, he was gathering up his items, bundled tightly onto a cart he rigged and pulls with a bicycle. His tent was already disassembled. He expected the Jackson City Council to pass and enforce a proposed ordinance regulating personal property in public spaces and banning unpermitted tents. He would go somewhere else, he said, being deliberately vague.
At an hours-long Tuesday meeting, City Council members opted against enacting an emergency ordinance and instead approved a first reading of the regulation, which could be amended approved next month.
It would allow city police officers, with written notice, to impound personal property beyond what fits in a 32-gallon tote. Items would be stored in shipping containers and people could later claim it with plausible explanation and without identification.
The ordinance would not criminalize homelessness or prohibit sleeping outdoors.
About 50 people went before City Council on Tuesday to state their opinions. Some were for it. Many asked for more. They said they wanted to see solutions for homelessness, not a “Band-Aid” or a “quick fix.”
The proposal and discussion came as Wireman and others have camped outside the library on West Michigan Avenue.
Tuesday, there were tarps, tents, bins, bikes and other items on the sidewalk, which the city argues create health and safety concerns. A young man played Eminem on a large speaker and a few people sat beneath a tree bordering the sidewalk.
A large dog stood on a leash and a young man in sporty sunglasses stopped by to drop off a garbage bag of men’s clothes.
“No tents, tarps, cots, sleeping implements or other structures,” reads a Jackson District Library sign posted on the front lawn. “No sleeping on library property.”
Wireman said the city should designate a spot for people who are homeless. “All they want is to be left alone,” he said, adding an expletive. “Pardon my language. That’s all the homeless want.”
Luck wasn’t on their side, he said. “I don’t care. They got a gambling debt. I don’t care. These people deserve to live life to the fullest.”
Wireman is a sober recovering alcoholic with a long list of ailments — COPD, diabetes, an eye injury caused by a work incident involving a piece of steel — that he said prevent him from having a job, but six times he has been denied federal disability benefits. He can never get to where he needs to go to complete the process, he said, but does sometimes receive food assistance.
Because of a crime he committed in 2005, he cannot secure a spot at the Jackson Interfaith Shelter — not that he would want to go there.
It feels like prison, he said. He’s been to prison. Spent a lot of his life incarcerated. “I can’t do that.”
At one time, there were 17 people staying in the encampment, he said.
He and others said they go to the library because there is Wi-Fi. During the day, they can use the bathroom or a computer.
They are not the only people who are homeless, however, Wireman said. Maybe they are just the most visible. “If you see one, there’s 10 more,” he said.
Tim Horton, 61, stayed too at the library for a while, but it was too chaotic. Now, he sleeps by the Grand River.
He supports the people there, but said he doesn’t agree with the heaps and accumulated possessions. He likes a clean space. Keeping it that way also helps clean his mind, he said, and he understands why the city wants to clear the area.
Still people who are homeless must carry things —blankets, clothes — and if people leave them, say in the woods, others could steal them, said Horton, who bristles at that word – “homeless.”
He hates it. It feels to him like discrimination, like he’s and others are being separately considered and cataloged.
“I’m still a person. We are all people,” he said.
No one gets to know you, he said. “They label you.”
“It’s not me. It’s what happened.”
Horton said he’s been without a house now for about three years. “You become it,” he said. The nature, the streets. Time doesn’t matter. “You accept it.”
He used to be a machinist, but he wasn’t the “functioning addict” he thought he was and lost it all as he used drugs and alcohol, he said. Now, he just occasionally uses marijuana.
He too spent some time in prison and the felony charge, even a couple decades old, still follows him.
“I was a good guy, but wasn’t acting it,” he said.
He had housing after he got off parole, but allowed guests that got him into trouble, he said. “The company you keep got me out.”
People sometimes make it seem so simple, he said. “Get off your ass. Get a job,” he said. “Some of us can’t do that.”
Each person has their own barriers, he said. Some struggle with mental illness. For others, it is substance abuse. Many were abused. Several said they are estranged from their kids, their families. A few detailed chronic injuries or pain. “I think we all don’t trust,” Horton said.
That’s why the problem is so hard to fix. Everyone has a different story, a different need, Horton said.
“There is no set standard for it,” he said.
There could be more programs, “more steps” for people who have these obstacles, he said, but he doesn’t have a clear answer or a specific demand. He’d like to see less hate, more respect.
What good is throwing away everyone’s stuff? Horton said.
“They are going to get what they get to survive,” he said.
“They got to.”
Several steps away, Toothman remained by the curb.
She said she sleeps during the day. It is safer that way.
Her boyfriend early this month suddenly died — possibly of a heart condition — and because she wasn’t on the lease at Reed Manor, she eventually had to go. For a while, she stayed with a neighbor, but had to leave there too.
As of Tuesday, she had been homeless for several hours. All she had with her was a wagon filled with pet supplies, pop and other items; a stuffed purse; and a carrier for her gray cat, Precious.
She didn’t know anything about the city’s proposal to impound excessive belongings.
“It’s all I have left,” she said of her items.
She said her identification was stolen. The shelter had no lower beds available and because of back pain she cannot sleep on a higher bunk. She called 211 and Legal Aid to no avail. The only person she knows who could help is in jail.
Homeless for past stretches, she has been outside the library before.
“Most of the time, I’m here by myself,” she said. She doesn’t beg for money, or cause trouble, she said. “I don’t leave garbage everywhere.”
What happens now?
“I don’t know,” said Toothman, taking drags on an electronic cigarette as tears collected in her eyes.
“I have no idea.”
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