LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Louisville's largest homeless encampments were cleared following a 21-day-notice.
Skid loaders cleared away tents and makeshift living areas under I-65 on Wednesday. The clearing commenced following a notice posted in September.
“Going from tent to tent to tent to make sure they have everything they want to take with them," Christian "Tiny" Herron told Spectrum News 1.
Volunteers like Herron says there has been a great deal of progress made in finding homeless residents more stable housing. Herron has 20 years of homeless outreach experience and for weeks she’s been preempting the clearing operation.
“The word 'homelessness' but we have to break that word down and there are many subcategories and there are many subcategories in there. You know, we’re dealing with the elderly, we’re dealing with kiddos aging out of foster care, we’re dealing with substance use disorder. We’re dealing with mental health at an all time crisis in our community," Herron said.
Louisville’s Office of Resilience and Community Services has the lead in the city’s effort to move as many homeless residents off the street into housing.
“We want to make sure that we get them into shelter and then move them into housing but we have to work on how do we stabilize these individuals and so one of those things is the consistent contact," Laird said.
Nina Moseley the executive director of Wayside Christian Mission estimates 150-200 people are sleeping outside during the summer months. The goal is to get as many people connected with the services offered by area homeless shelters. Moseley said on Tuesday, when they help people find transitional housing, they provide donated furniture to those individuals.
As these encampments are being cleared Laird and her staff are reviewing applications from organizations interested in running a city-owned homeless campsite referred to as a “Safe Outdoor Space,” or “S.O.S.”
“We are trying to move as quickly as possible to as rapidly as possible to expedite the process so we can get the SOS up and running," Laird said.
“We have begun to change the mindset of, 'OK we have all these services. Let’s take it to them' and that’s been a beautiful thing," Herron added.