University Daily Kansan / Wednesday, July 27, 1988
Campus/Area
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About 35 people came to Town Center park Friday night to hear the Rev. Jesse Tucker speak about Lawrence's homeless.
'Street preacher,' others address murder and local homeless issue
By Monica Hayde
Kansan staff writer
The arrest of a transient in connection with the murder of a 9-year-old Lawrence boy has some Lawrence residents worried about the problem of homelessness in Lawrence.
Friday night, the Rev Jesse Tucker, a "street preacher" from Independence, Mo., spoke to about 40 people on the corner of Sixth and Massachusetts streets. He called for a greater awareness of the problem of homelessness in Lawrence and around the country.
Betty Barlow Lawrence Public Library
Tucker, who is the murdered boy's great-great-uncle, said he did not have the answer to the problem, but that the homeless need to be given with compassion and needed to get in touch with Jesus Christ.
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If you have a day-care center and you get people there who have problems, you would have someone there who could help the person. The homeless people would be less apt to sit in downtown coffee houses or other places.
Richard Settlemore's body was found July 14 on the bank of the Kansas River near Burcham Park. John William, described as a transient, has been charged with first-degree murder in the slaying.
Homeless people in Lawrence are provided with shelter during the winter through the Salvation Army, 946 New Hampshire St., and with free meals throughout the year from the Lawrence Interdemonstrational Nutrition Kitchen. But helping the homeless may be causing some problems for Lawrence.
Betty Barlow, reference librarian at the Lawrence Public Library, said many of the town's homeless spent their days in the library, especially during the winter. She called Lawrence a hospitable community and said the word of the town's treatment of homeless people and transients from other cities are coming to Lawrence looking for a place to stay.
"The biggest problem has come in the last couple of years," she said. "We are getting people who are definitely outsiders and troublemakers. In the past, the people who came into the library looking for shelter, well, we got to know them and pass the time of day with them. But now we are seeing people with alcohol problems and
mental problems."
Barlow said she attended a meeting several months ago at the Salvation Army to discuss the homeless situation with downtown business owners. She suggested creating a center for the town's homeless.
Barlow said a day-care center might attract more transients to town, but they would have a place to go and would not have to sit in the streets or in downtown restaurants.
"If you have a day-care center and you get people there who have problems, you would have someone there who could help that person," she said. "The homeless people would be less ap to sit in downtown coffee houses or other places, where they loose in the morning, and from there, they just look for someone to get out of the cold."
Barlow said Lawrence might be attracting transients from around the country but cutting back on programs to help them was not an answer to the problem.
Linda Christopherperson, director of the Salvation Army's homeless shelter, said Lawrence did not have more of a problem with the homeless than other small towns. She said she wanted to start a year-round shelter for the homeless.
Although some, including Mayor Bob Schumm, have said that a year-round shelter would attract more homeless people to Lawrence, Christopherson said a year-round shelter would not attract undesirable transients. She said a set of rules and certain provisions to keep out people who drink or use illegal drugs would keep many homeless from coming to Lawrence.
20 years," she said. "When you are working with the homeless, you get to recognize the ones that are transients."
Christopherson said the majority of homeless people were not dangerous and did not have mental problems. But many people look at the homeless as intimidating, because someone without a place to stay is an unpleasant thing to face, she said.
City Commissioner Mike Amyx said the city commission had not discussed the problem of homelessness in Lawrence since William's arrest. Amyx said he did not think the commissioners would give special attention to the homeless situation in Lawrence right away.
"We've got homeless in Lawrence who have been here for
Lawrence Police spokesman Chris Mulvenon said the general policy for dealing with the homeless in town was to leave them alone unless someone complained about them or unless a disturbance occurred.
Christopherperson and Barlow both said the Lawrence Police Department was sympathetic toward the homeless.
Mulvenon said Lawrence was a highly educated community that provided a great deal of services for the homeless. But he said he had received cases whose uses attracted dangerous or undesirable people to town.
"There are business owners downtown who have raised some concerns in the past, mostly, restaurants and places that have tables where they can sit down," he said.
Homeless sweat out summer
An employee of Drake Snack Shop, 507 Massachusetts St., said the restaurant was frequented by homeless people during the winter, but not too much during the summer.
They stay in the park, in cars and under bridges. They live in Lawrence. They have no home.
Kansan staff writer
Lawrence is a nice town; a college town. A town where people care. But there is a problem. The city's homeless have few options in their search for relief.
Relief options are few for those without shelter in Lawrence
By Debbie Bengtson
Two places provide shelter for the homeless in Lawrence. The Salvation Army, 946 New Hampshire St., provides shelter in the church's gymnasium from October to April. But because of the lack of money and the summer programs it has, a year-round shelter cannot exist there.
Headquarters Inc., 1419 Massachusetts St., is a general crisis center that provides temporary shelter year-round.
Headquarters temporarily housed 665 people last year, since January. 374 people have asked for temporary shell
Mike Harnish, administrative assistant at Headquarters, said he thought one reason for the increase in homelessness in the United States may be the tightening of the requirements to receive welfare under federal economic policies.
"The domestic economic policies and the social head-set of the teagan administration has a direct effect on
the economy."
"I guess it is an indication of how extensive the problem is in the United States," he said. "Lawrence is not imminent."
He said the homeless problem in Lawrence was indicative of the problem in the United States.
And people are ignoring the problem, said Linda Christopherson, social worker and co-coordinator of the Salvation Army's winter shelter.
"I think there are a lot of them that would rather turn their heads than do something about the problem," she said. "If they would stick around here some morning when I serve breakfast to the homeless, maybe they'd change their minds."
No one knows what being homeless is, she said, and consequently, not many sympathize with the homeless.
She said she had served breakfast to 70 people since July 1.
"People sit all day in a nice cool office, then go home to a nice cool house, and never think about sleeping in a car with the windows rolled up because you're afraid someone might knock you in the head." she said.
She said the Salvation Army was considering a year-round shelter for the homeless, but public support was limited.
She said some city commissioners had expressed a concern that a year-round shelter would invite homeless people to Lawrence. She also said downtown businessmen thought homeless people intimidated their customers.
"There's only about one percent of all homeless that would be intimidating." she said.
Mayor Bob Schumm said that there was a homeless problem, but that a year-round shelter for the homeless would only attract homeless people to Lawrence. He said that would not be safe for the community.
"We just had a murder in this city, and it was related to a transient," he said.
Donna McCall, director of the Lawrence Interdenominational Nutrition Kitchen, 1000 Kentucky St., an organization that serves meals three times a week and on the last Friday of the month at the First Christian Church, said that if a year-round shelter attracted the homeless it wouldn't matter.
"If there is a need, we should meet it," she said. "If it brings in someone here that needs aid, we should help."
There are four categories of homeless, said John Churchill of the Salvation Army.
"These people simply need a place to go to get their act together." Churchill said.
The hardcore homeless, or the person who lives under the bridge, is the first category, Churchill said. This person usually is homeless as a way of life.
In the second category is the person or family that is situationally homeless because something tragic hap-
The next category is people who are homeless because of things beyond their control
"They have no place to go and are really abused and taken advantage of by others," he said. "Nationally, around 30 to 35 percent are thought to be severely mentally retarded."
The last category, which occurs most frequently in Lawrence, is called the hidden homeless, Churchill said. They don't have a family base or a place to call home.
"These are people living with relatives and friends or renting a cheap apartment with three or four other families."
Churchill said that about 15 percent of the U.S. population falls into one of those categories.
During the winter months, the homeless can take shelter at the Salvation Army's basement gymnasium. In the summer, there is no relief from the hot temperatures except at the public library, all-night coffee houses or laundromats.
An employee of Village Inn said the restaurant had
an effort to homeless people staying for long periods of
times and was always happy.
"We sort of wing it when that happens," she said. "If they camp out, they are asked to leave."
Linda Lown, employee of the Penn House, 1035 Pennsylvania St., an organization that helps with free emergency medical care, food and clothing assistance, said there was nothing permanent the Penn House could do to get the homeless off the streets. She said a year earlier possibly could attract more homeless to Lawrence.
"But something has to be done," she said. "And if that (a shelter) were here, we could help. Because the homeless don't want to be homeless."
August 21 marks anniversary of Quantrill's Lawrence raid
By Michael Shunk
Kansan staff writer
An air of serenity enveloped Lawrence on the evening of August 20.1863.
Rumors of an attack by a pro-slavery militia had dissipated after weeks of quiet in the town. And the militia, as regiments had relaxed their forces,
Lawrence seemed a safe place to sleep that night.
But as dawn broke the next morning, the people of Lawrence were awakened by gunshots, screams and horses thundering by on the dusty ground. The people were killed that morning by affiars known as Quantrill's Raiders.
Andrew Morrison/KANSAN
August 21 will be the 125th anniversary of the raid.
A monument to the victims of Quantrill's raid on Lawrence in 1863 stands in Oak Hill cemetery, 1605 Oak Hill Ave. The monument was erected in 1895.
"Given how far west Lawrence is, it was a very significant engagement in the Civil War," said Steven Hanna, director of the Douglas County Historical Society.
William C. Quantrill, a former resident of Lawrence, was an unrecognized captain in the Confederate army when he led his men into Lawrence. With his band of about 250 men, who were primarily from Missouri, he led several similar raids along the Kansas-Missouri border.
Quantrill's motivation for raiding Lawrence are not clear. Jansen said,
"He was a product of the violence that was going on at the time,"
Jansen said.
"It was not the act of a deranged individual. There were lots of reasons for it. Political, economic and social conditions were involved."
Kansas was not a slave state at that time, but Missouri was.
In addition to the many lives lost in the raid, Lawrence also suffered tremendous damage and destruction of property as Quantrill's men set
dozens of buildings on fire. The total damage to property was estimated at about $20,000.
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Some 100 homes burned that day, and most of the town's business district was destroyed.
One building that stood through the raid and that continues to be a well-known part of downtown Lawrence today is the Eldridge Hotel, 701 Massachusetts St.