‘We are struggling.’ Stubborn homeless camp impacts life near this Tacoma intersection
A South Hosmer Street intersection has become a hotbed for homeless encampments and drug activity. Business owners there say they are struggling to manage the situation while unhoused people who call the area home say they have no reason to leave.
Brad Johnson, the manager of the Smoke & Beer Mini Mart on South 96th Street and South Hosmer Street, told The News Tribune folks living at the nearby apartments are scared to shop at his convenience store because of loitering and drug activity in the parking lot and in the street.
The lot is littered with trash, cars pull in and out, and there is evidence of fires on the pavement adjacent to the building. The building, which is leased by several businesses, was recently painted to cover graffiti.
Every day, Johnson said, drivers pull into the lot to buy and sell drugs with folks hanging around the intersection. With drug activity, prostitution and vandalism occurring so regularly, he said he calls the police on a daily basis.
“We pay taxes, but the city does not help our business,” he told The News Tribune.
Yung Martindale owns a barber shop in the same building. She told The News Tribune business had been on the decline since the pandemic. She can’t afford to hire anyone, much less attract candidates who would want to work there.
“Nobody is here now,” she said. “Customers are scared to even park here.”
Martindale said people regularly urinate and defecate near the front of her business. Parents whose children attend a preschool across the street had similar complaints of public urination.
Some businesses in the area have installed fences around their parking lots. The salon adjacent to Martindale’s barber shop has iron bars on its doors and windows. Martindale said her doors remain locked and the business is operated by appointment only.
Martindale said the city has been unresponsive.
“They don’t give a damn about it,” she told The News Tribune. “We are struggling, I can’t survive.”
City of Tacoma Spokesperson, Maria Lee, told the News Tribune city outreach staff has made contact with people in the area 47 different times in the past six months. Two of them were helped into housing, and 24 expressed interest in housing. The remainder had no interest in leaving the streets.
In the past week, there has been more than 15 complaints of homeless encampments on the blocks surrounding South Hosmer Street and South 96th Street made through The City of Tacoma’s 311 reporting system. The majority of the reports have since been marked as “closed,” meaning city homeless outreach staff had reportedly made contact with the people there.
Johnson said police and city staff regularly come in the mornings to clear people from the sidewalks, but by nightfall, folks return.
The people who live there
Jimmy Guerrero had been staying at an encampment about a block away in front of an apartment complex on South 96th Street. He told The News Tribune he had been staying for several months because he knows people there.
He told The News Tribune during the day he feels safe, but at night, not as much.
“It’s not a good situation,” Guerrero said of the neighborhood.
He said for many, it is “a choice” to live where they do. He told The News Tribune he suffered from depression after his kids moved to Canada and was in need of mental health resources.
A young man named Prince Hamilton was also staying in the same encampment. He told The News Tribune he came to the encampment because he knew some people who were staying there.
“We always feel alone when our back is against the wall,” he said when asked if he ever feels alone living on the streets. “But being around a certain group of friends makes a difference.”
Hamilton said he had been staying with folks there for a few weeks because he knows some of the people. He said he felt safe around most of the people in the area, but a few acted “funny” from time to time.
He told The News Tribune he had been at the encampment for a few weeks. He has been living unhoused for a few years after he and his roommate got kicked out of an apartment.
Hamilton said outreach staff occasionally come by to offer resources. He said he had been on a waiting list for housing for about two years but could not remember the name of the program.
“I have been promised housing probably 10 different times,” said Kevin Mosley, who also has been living at the encampment.
He told The News Tribune that he has never been re-contacted for housing resources.
Mosley said he is 62-years-old and has been homeless for 10 years after losing his house. He said an ankle injury while working became a catalyst for an opioid addiction.
“I had a choice to live in pain or become an addict,” he told The News Tribune. “I chose the latter.”
Mosley said he has been in the South Tacoma area for the entire stint of his homelessness. His son was staying in the same encampment, and his daughter was living on Hosmer Street as well.
He said he views himself as a patriarchal figure in the community of those living on the streets nearby. He said he receives several thousand dollars a month from L&I due to his injury and shares it with the people he lives with on the streets.
“I could be out of here, but I take care of people,” Mosley told The News Tribune. “Sometimes that means food, sometimes that means drugs.”
He said he enjoys the sense of community and the company of those he has met along the way, but he has also witnessed a lot of violence and experienced a lot of trauma.
“I’ve lost more friends in the last seven years on Hosmer than the rest of my life combined,” Mosley said.
Through all of that, he said he feels content living where he is, with the people he has around him.
“I don’t need much,” Mosley said from his chair. “I could live in a tent my whole life and it wouldn’t bother me.”
This story was originally published October 1, 2024 at 9:59 AM.
