Downtown Evansville at any given time has about 400 individuals experiencing homelessness, sometimes with mental health challenges.
This can lead to incidents of trespass, harassment or disorderly conduct.
A group of business owners, mental health and homeless service providers and ministers, are having a conversation about homelessness downtown, called a Downtown Resource Series, hosted by the Evansville Police Department Crime Prevention Unit.
The Wednesday presentation was led by Southwestern Behavioral Healthcare.
“Just because someone's experiencing a mental health emergency, just because of this moment, they're not perfectly able to control themselves doesn't mean they're free from accountability,” said Clinical Social Worker Charlotte Critchfield with Southwestern Behavioral Healthcare.
She’s joined with the EPD to begin talking about walking the fine line of advocating for the homeless and those experiencing a mental health crisis, and advocating for downtown property owners and employees.
This new informational series hosted downtown aims to educate downtown businesses, residents and others about how to best help the homeless and protect themselves.
“Like I said earlier, it has to be a balance between advocacy and accountability,” Critchfield said. “We can't say, ‘oh, they're sick, so they're doing these things’ and leave them in that situation.’ We have to then address it and help them work through it.”
She said the first step could be arrest or hospitalization — but the follow up needs to be wraparound services.
This meeting was the first in a series of three. The next is about homeless services. The third will be about common infractions those experiencing a mental health crisis have committed locally — and what to do when it happens.
This discussion comes at a time when the Indiana House of Representatives is considering legislation that would make sleeping in public a class C misdemeanor.
The meetings are being held at Encounter Church. Lead Pastor Stew Armstrong said the church has a variety of interactions with those experiencing homelessness.
“Some weeks we will have people that will want to stay, and some days we'll have people that want to sleep on our porch and want to spend a lot of time here," he said. "A day here or there is not really that big of a deal, but unfortunately, groups tend to come and it gets bigger and worse for a lot of other people around.”
Because for example, drug sales and drug use would sometimes occur right on Encounter’s front porch — if certain individuals slept overnight outside.
Everyone is welcome on Sunday mornings and bible study, but some individuals prove to be unsafe.
“We want to minister to them,” he said. “But we also have a larger community that we have to look out for.”
Josh Brewer is Sergeant of the Crime Prevention Unit of the EPD. He said the series is being offered in response to incidents experienced by businesses downtown.
He said they find themselves at the “intersection” of personal mental health crisis and homelessness — and the businesses and stakeholders and downtown residents.
These stakeholders wonder where they can direct struggling individuals — or when they need to call the police.
“If we do have to make an arrest in a situation — that doesn't have to be the end of it. We can provide services and treatment and counseling and things like that.”
The next session is May 14 at 10 AM at Encounter Church.
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