Why Should Delaware Care?
In recent years, the homeless community in Wilmington has grown in size. How to best serve that population while trying to connect them to services to improve their situations has proved to be a contentious debate in the city. A plan to sanction an encampment to coalesce the population was abandoned in just a few weeks.
As the sun set Monday, a tent encampment in Christina Park sat mostly empty, marking the end of a controversial chapter in Wilmington’s response to homelessness.
Government-issued tents lay collapsed on the ground, while a handful of private tents remained standing. Newly installed fencing circled the encampment, and a gaggle of police stood just inside its gates.
Throughout the day, the officers had allowed people who had called the park home for the past several months to leave the enclosure while carting away their meager possessions. For some it was another moment of turbulence in their difficult lives.
For Ron “Philly” Simmons, a park resident who had acted as a de-facto leader of the encampment, the city “should’ve left us alone.”
Most had another place to sleep that night after city officials and nonprofits had lined up immediate housing. But the question on the minds of many was what would happen after their housing benefits expired in the coming weeks or months. Wilmington officials had repeatedly emphasized that tent camping in public spaces in the city is illegal.
Mayor John Carney said last week that the city’s experiment in sanctioning the encampment had accomplished its goals of directing unhoused people to a designated area where various organizations could provide coordinated services.
But several homeless advocates have argued the closure shouldn’t have happened — or should have been delayed until permanent housing options became clearer.
Earlier this month, the Wilmington City Council even passed a resolution urging Carney to “immediately halt any forced removal plans at Christina Park.”
Still others expressed heartache with how the city ultimately carried out the evictions of the park’s residents.
While standing inside the park enclosure on Monday, City Council President Ernest “Trippi” Congo acknowledged that the optics of chain link fencing and police surrounding the encampment “doesn’t look good at all.”
The end of a tent city
Early Monday morning, work crews installed the fencing around the perimeter of the encampment.
Afterward, only city officials and certain service providers were allowed to enter and assist park residents moving out of their tents. Congo said he believed the Carney administration installed the fences to prevent demonstrators from physically blocking the closure of the encampment.
“At several (past) council meetings, there were a lot of advocates who came and said directly to the administration, you will not force anyone to move,” he said.
Throughout the day, city and state officials floated in and out of the park, including Daniel Walker, Carney’s deputy chief of staff, who had become the mayor’s chief spokesperson on the issue in recent weeks.
Also visiting the park were several politicians. In addition to Congo, there were city council members Coby Owens and Michelle Harlee, former-City Councilman Kevin Kelley, State Rep. Madinah Wilson-Anton (D-Bear), and Curtis Linton, a union leader who is running a campaign for the New Castle County Council.
Officials from the Delaware Division of Substance Abuse and Mental Health were also present.
Outside the gates of the enclosure, advocates from organizations that had opposed the closure gathered with food and snacks for residents.
In an interview with Spotlight Delaware, housing advocate Jacqueline Bryk said she and others were concerned that some residents could ultimately end up back on the streets — or even in jail — after their temporary housing terms ended. She then turned her concern to a critique of the Carney administration.
“At this point, I think the mayor is so convinced that there is a small group of people against him, and not that these citizens of Wilmington don’t want this,” she said.
Rachel Stucker, executive director of the Housing Alliance of Delaware, asserted that city officials, when running the encampment, had not done enough to plan for where residents would go once the encampment closed.
“I think there wasn’t enough of the ‘where are people going?’ How are we getting them there?’” she said.
During a press conference last week, Carney acknowledged a concern that some people may move to sleep in other public places in the city after Christina Park is closed. He noted then that the city may need assistance from state prosecutors.
“We do need support from the (Delaware) Attorney General in terms of if there’s a need for a prosecution. I don’t intend or want to have to prosecute folks for this, but if they’re violating the law, if they’re camping in a park after dark,” Carney said.
In an apparent response Monday, Delaware Attorney General Kathy Jennings said in a press release that her office would not assist the city in prosecuting people for simply sleeping in Christina Park. Instead, her team would only prosecute acts of violence, and trespassing or destruction of private property, she said.
“The City did not consult us in advance. After we learned about the evictions, we were clear with the Mayor’s office that, while our Community Engagement team would be available to assist with service referrals, we would not prosecute people for their nonviolent presence in a park,” the letter stated, saying such prosecutions would be a “moral failure.”
In an interview, Mat Marshall, spokesman for the Attorney General’s office, said prosecutions related to sleeping in other parks would be handled on a “case-by-case basis.”
Mixed reactions to the park’s closure
While many present at the park’s closure on Monday were critical of Carney, a handful from outside his administration offered varying levels of support.
Kelley said the challenges of homelessness should be addressed by state officials, because “they’re the ones who have the resources.”
One Eastside neighbor who visited Christina Park Monday said he was happy about the closure. The resident, Edward Williams, called the encampment an “eyesore,” even while stating that it isn’t right for people to have to live outside in a park.
In contrast, Wilson-Anton, the Bear lawmaker, called Carney’s decision to close the encampment callous, saying she saw no reason for the city to evict people from Christina park.
“I’m just appalled,” she said.
For the park residents who were moving out of their tents, some noted they had been offered stays up to six months at the New Castle County Hope Center. Others, like Simmons, said they were only given two-week hotel stays.
Daniel Walker, Carney’s spokesman, said encampment residents had been offered an application to secure 90-day stays in temporary housing at locations, such as the YMCA and Sojourners’ Place.
Some refused initially, but as the encampment’s closure date approached, some begin to reconsider, he said.
Walker said the city most recently offered two-week hotel stays as a temporary step before transitioning people into 90-day housing placements.
Still, two park residents told Spotlight Delaware on Monday evening that the city had not provided them with temporary housing following their departure from the park.
One was John “Jay” Simmons, a Wilmington resident, who said he had been staying at the encampment for two months. Simmons said he returned to the encampment on Monday afternoon after looking for work that day. He then asked city officials about being placed into a hotel.
Officials told him they would check whether his name was on a list, he said. But they left the park before giving him an answer, he said.
By Monday evening, as the city’s sanctioned encampment entered its final hours, Simmons said he still did not know where he would sleep that night.
“I don’t know,” Simmons said. “I’ll probably set up my tent somewhere else.”
