Some urge ‘Get tougher’ with ‘day spenders’

By Ben Westcott, Chronicle Staff Writer

The public was invited to weigh in at the Oct. 24 meeting of the Day User Task Force Committee.

Drew Gerster said he moved to Glens Falls from Buffalo two years ago and that he had been “a homeless drug addict for 10 years” throughout New York before he “got out of it himself.”

He said, “Nothing’s being done” to fix the situation at Centennial Circle and that he sees what goes on there because he works at Domino’s or Bowled seven days a week.

“I’m not impressed at all,” he said, citing “lack of community action.”

“I’ve had to go out of my businesses five times in the past year to give CPR,” Mr. Gerster said.

“I had somebody die in my hands. I just had somebody three weeks ago puke blood all over my shirt. I’ve pulled six inch blades, I’ve pulled machetes out of homeless people, right in the circle.

“For the past two days, I’ve gone out there cleaning up the garbage. Just me.”

That statement drew a round of applause for his efforts.

“It’s not fair to the kids that have to walk around and see an overdosed person or somebody puking up blood and stuff like that,” Mr. Gerster said.

“I just watched a group of 30 kids walk past a whole bunch of homeless people that are really nasty, and also that I know for a fact are sex offenders.”

Pam Taylor said she lives at Cronin High Rise and was homeless under the bridge in South Glens Falls 10 years ago.

“Right now,” she said, “our issue is, yes we have homeless shelters, but a lot of these people don’t want to go by the rules. These guys out here now, they don’t want help. They just want to know where their next fix is.”

A man who said he lives “right on the circle” urged, “The answer is to let them hit bottom. This is ridiculous. This is a drug and alcohol problem, it’s a choice problem these people are making. The resolve has to come from within them.”

“They don’t want [programs],” he said. “We cannot keep aiding them. We cannot keep allowing them to get fed. They need to hit bottom themselves.”

A man who said he works at the 333 Glen building described problems in that part of downtown as well.

“The staff that maintains our building and facilities is constantly having to clean vomit and excrement out of our parking garage,” he said. “They’ve even gone so far as to chain close a fire exit, because it was being used inappropriately as an entrance.”

He said of the problems they’re seeing, “I really want us to understand that this is a fire that we have to put out. It’s an emergency. It’s urgent. We can’t spend a lot of time thinking. We’ve got to make fast decisions and act fast if we want to get ahead of this.”

Ivan Bell, a Glens Falls resident who said he owns IBS Septic & Drain in Queensbury, advocated for having police coverage on foot.

“When I was a kid, there was a beat cop down here,” he said. “You didn’t monkey around in Glens Falls. If you did, you knew the cops were there.

“In a patrol car, you can’t see what’s going on. You’ve got somebody walking around downtown with eyes and ears, they’re going to hear it.”

WAIT House Director Jason McLaughlin said, “Between Open Door Mission, Ascend Mental Wellness, Catholic Charities, and WAIT House, we’re helping hundreds of people in this community,” but that they can’t take in everyone.

“We do have an obligation to protect the most vulnerable people in our programs, that are working on their recovery, from some of these individuals that are not ready to receive the help,” he said.

Queensbury Hotel owner Ed Moore said that while stressing the importance of assistive programs, “I think what has happened too much is there’s so much compassion we lose focus on what we have to do to take care of our community.”

“We can’t kick the can down the road,” he said. “We need to take care of our investment. So many people have put so much money into this community. There’s been investments in this community to make our community better. We can’t let it go to the gutter.”

Housing crisis cited as factor

A woman who said she’s a coordinator of Cooper Street Supportive Housing spoke of a housing crisis. “I have people that work full-time,” she said. “They are not drug addicts. But they simply cannot afford the rent in the area. They can’t afford rent in Hudson Falls, Fort Edward.”

Paul Hancock, who said he’s a retired economist, added, “The rent/wage gap in this town is overwhelming. If you have a minimum wage job, you make $33,000 a year. You cannot rent and not be rent burdened. So all these people can’t find housing.”

Palmer, Landry weigh in at day user meeting

By Ben Westcott, Chronicle Staff Writer

Ward 3 Councilwoman and mayoral candidate Diana Palmer said at the Oct. 24 meeting of the Glens Falls’s Day Users Task Force taht she plans to speak to Saratoga Springs’ public safety commissioner to understand what has happened since they enacted an ordinance prohibiting camping on certain public property.

She said she’ll ask questions like “Has it been effective? What have been the unintended consequences? What are the shortfalls? Is there anything that they would do different?”

Mrs. Palmer added, “I would love to have our police chief meet with the chief in Saratoga and talk to him and ask, ‘how is this going for you?’”

She stressed that “We don’t want to just pass a copy of a law that was for another community. We want to figure out what will work best for Glens Falls.”

“I don’t think it’s a one-size fits all approach,” Mrs. Palmer said.

“I think we have to do pragmatic things, like consider where our bus stop is. We have to bring law enforcement into the picture because we want to help people, but criminal activity is criminal activity, and we can’t let it go on in front of our businesses. So if people are engaging in drug deals, we should be enforcing that.”

She said the city is starting a program called Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion (LEAD), in which a case manager can be called to assist non-violent people that have frequent interaction with law enforcement to find mental health services and housing instead of “being sent to jail for some minor offense where your situation is going to get worse and you’re going to get out and do it again.”

Task Force Chair and Ward 2 Councilman Bob Landry said, “We need to make sure that our residents are safe, and what they see scares them.

“I know that there’s a certain segment of the homeless population who are sex offenders,” he said. “And yet we’re debating whether they can be within maybe 150 feet of St. Mary’s School and playground. If this wasn’t a homeless issue, the community would be wild that we were allowing that to possibly happen.”

Of the homeless issue in general, he said, “This is like a big wave you see coming at you, that big tsunami wave they always talk about. It’s out there and it can come, but you can mitigate its effects if you react properly and soon enough.”

But he said, “We can’t arrest our way out of this. We can’t shoo them out of town. You can’t put a gate at the entrance of our city and say ‘who are you and what are you, and we’ll decide if you want to come in.’”

Mr. Landry said he wild share a summary of the public’s comments at the Oct. 28 Common Council meeting.

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