Local non-profit service providers and staff from several\nCity of Yakima divisions and departments teamed up early Thursday morning to\nreach out to people camping on public property and point them toward safe,\ntemporary housing, regular meals, and other services.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The task force included\nrepresentatives from Yakima Union Gospel Mission, Yakima Neighborhood Health\nServices, and Sunrise Outreach. More\nthan a dozen current residents of Camp Hope joined the task force, which also\nincluded staff from the City’s Code Administration Division, Refuse Division,\nPublic Works Department, Police Department, and Legal Department. The task\nforce was formed in light of a notable recent increase in spontaneous camping\non public property (sidewalks, parks, etc.). \nA City of Yakima ordinance passed in 2016 prohibits camping on public\nproperty.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Signs providing notice of the City\u2019s no-camping on public\nproperty ordinance have been posted at locations where people are known to\nsometimes camp.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Early Thursday morning (about 5:00 am), the task\nforce went to places where people were camping and let the people staying there\nknow that what they were doing is not allowed in the city,” said\nCommunications & Public Affairs Director Randy Beehler. “People staying in the campsites were\noffered transportation to either the Yakima Union Gospel Mission or Camp Hope,”\nsaid Beehler.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The primary objective of the task force is to ensure the\nhealth and safety of people experiencing homelessness and the safety of the\ngeneral public. <\/p>\n\n\n\n “If people who were given the opportunity to access\nsafe, temporary housing, regular meals, and other services chose not to take\nadvantage of it, they had the option to simply vacate the campsite,” said\nBeehler. “People living in a prohibited\ncampsite who refused to leave or go to a shelter could be arrested. Fortunately, that was not necessary Thursday\nmorning.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n Of the more than 15 people contacted by the task force\nearly Thursday morning, two voluntarily went to the Union Gospel Mission. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Several shopping carts from local retailers were retrieved\nand will be returned to the stores from which they were taken. <\/p>\n\n\n\n “Addressing homelessness is a complex challenge that\nrequires the involvement of the entire community,” said Beehler. “The task force is playing a small but\nimportant role in that effort.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n The task force will continue to be deployed periodically.\u00a0\u00a0 <\/p>\n\n\n\n Local non-profit service providers and staff from several City of Yakima divisions and departments teamed up early Thursday morning to reach out to people camping on public property and point them toward safe, temporary housing, regular meals, and other services. The task force included representatives from Yakima Union Gospel Mission, Yakima Neighborhood Health Services, and<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7982","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yakimawa.gov\/media\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7982","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yakimawa.gov\/media\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yakimawa.gov\/media\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yakimawa.gov\/media\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yakimawa.gov\/media\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7982"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.yakimawa.gov\/media\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7982\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7988,"href":"https:\/\/www.yakimawa.gov\/media\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7982\/revisions\/7988"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yakimawa.gov\/media\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7982"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yakimawa.gov\/media\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7982"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yakimawa.gov\/media\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7982"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}