Homeless camp controversy in Capitol City
TOPEKA (KSNT) — The owner of Brighton Place North, a nursing home near the Kansas River and the Sardou Bridge, says she was dismayed when a homeless camp showed up right across the street.
“There are people using the restroom outside,” Kayelynne Hoeme said. “You know, we have a lot of windows in our building, and we do take a lot of walks, you know, around. They have come over and used our water on the outside of the building, they’ve actually knocked on the door before.”
While it’s a disturbing sight for the nursing home residents and staff, under the city’s new camping ordinance are unsheltered people allowed to live here? Working for you, we contacted the city and received this statement from a spokeswoman.
“The camp located near ne 13th and Jefferson has been determined to be lawful under the camping ordinance. There are no efforts to remove the camp at this time as this is a lawful location to camp.”
City of Topeka Spokeswoman
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Although this site is deemed a lawful camping location, there’s confusion over how the unsheltered are finding out about this new location.
“A group of community organizations has worked on a map(s) to try to identify public locations where it is legal to camp based on the city camping ordinance, but this is not a city map that city personnel use.”
City of Topeka Spokeswoman
But nursing home officials say they were told otherwise when a city official contacted them about their concerns.
“Was actually shown on the map this plot over here that was designated for the unsheltered,” Brighton Place North Administrator Jordan Hoeme said. “It took us off guard. We didn’t think that was the case. We were never told that that was what this was going to be.”
With misinformation flooding the city, it has District Two Councilwoman Christina Valdivia-Alcala flustered.
“I hope that even though we have an interim city manager, that the interim city manager takes a hard look at all of this and not leave this challenge exclusively for the new city manager to bare,” Valdivia-Alcala said. “There are things that can be done right now, and one thing that needs to be done now is that encampment needs to go down.”
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Valdivia-Alcala took further comments to Facebook on Thursday, saying that a Topeka city official has informed her there are maps that have been put together and shared by some of the main social services agencies that work with the unsheltered, and that these maps were being shared with between 90 and 100 locations in Oakland and in the district. She tells 27 News that she has a meeting with the mayor on Monday, April 1 to further discuss the topic.
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