photo by: Kim Callahan/Journal-World

City crews cleaned up remaining items from campsites in North Lawrence on Tuesday, April 16, 2024. The city-supported site for people experiencing homelessness was shut down in March. The adjacent unsanctioned campsite was shut down this week.

The City of Lawrence’s online form for reporting new homeless campsites around the city has received 230 reports since it was launched six months ago, but only 57 locations have been confirmed by city staff.

That’s according to a memo from Assistant City Manager Brandon McGuire included with this week’s Lawrence City Commission agenda materials and brought up briefly during the City Commission’s meeting Tuesday night. As the Journal-World has reported, the city launched the form in October.

McGuire’s memo breaks down the 230 reports since October further. Along with the 57 sites confirmed by staff, 105 reports were “duplications” and another seven were false reports. The memo says other reports noted locations where no camping equipment was found.

Commissioners didn’t spend much time discussing the memo, but Commissioner Lisa Larsen did have a question about whether the 57 confirmed sites were allowed to continue, or if the individuals who were staying there were asked to find alternative shelter.

“I don’t know specifically about each of them, but we typically would try and always provide support services, offer recommendations for different supports that they might need,” City Manager Craig Owens told commissioners. “So in some cases, I’m sure that they were continuing to camp, but in other cases, they may have been asked to move — and in all cases they would’ve been offered services.”

Owens added that there are some locations where the city expects there shouldn’t be any camping taking place and lets the individuals staying there know right away, while in other locations with a “long history” of camping, the city is gradually working to address those more systematically.

McGuire’s memo notes that reports made through the form are only viewed and used by Homeless Solutions Director Misty Bosch-Hastings, a homeless programs project specialist and a city-contracted outreach member with Bert Nash Community Mental Health Center.

From there, those people can take a number of actions, including building a rapport with the person who’s camping and connecting them to local agencies, informing them about alternative solutions to camping, and helping them to move personal items and determine an alternative shelter location.

The update about the campsite reporting form comes the same day that city workers closed and cleaned up the homeless campsite by the Kansas River in North Lawrence. As the Journal-World reported, the city last week said there were approximately 10 people still camping in the area whom city staff was working with to finalize next steps into shelter.

photo by: Kim Callahan/Journal-World

City crews clean up remaining items from campsites in North Lawrence on Tuesday, April 16, 2024. The city-supported site for people experiencing homelessness was shut down in March. The adjacent unsanctioned campsite was shut down this week.

Earlier last week, Lawrence Mayor Bart Littlejohn told the Journal-World that he expects the city to employ the methods used when responding to campsites through the reporting form as the city addresses other sites outside of the city’s Central Business District, which encompasses the downtown area surrounding Massachusetts Street, along the river levee trail and the Riverfront Mall area up to the railroad tracks at New York Street.