Despite a coronavirus vaccine and lower county positivity rates, Hamilton says there's still a long way to go. And we talk about the decision to enforce the prohibition of overnight camping in city parks by those experiencing homelessness.
On this week’s installment of Ask The Mayor, Bloomington Mayor John Hamilton addresses these issues and more during a Facebook Live Zoom event Tuesday. Listen to the full conversation with Indiana Newsdesk anchor Joe Hren by clicking on the play button above, or read some of the questions and answers below. A portion of this segment airs 6:45 and 8:45 a.m. Wednesday on WFIU. Here are some highlights.
This conversation has been edited for clarity and conciseness.
Hren: So let's start with a COVID-19 update. Overall statewide, Monroe County has the second lowest seven day positivity rate at 7.3 percent. Of course, we have news the vaccine started arriving in Indiana Monday. But it's not time to let your guard down. I know right before Thanksgiving, you asked people not to share air with a different household. Are you asking the same for these upcoming holidays?
Hamilton: The bad news is, while there may be good, good indicators on some positivity rates, overall in Indiana and in our county, our community, the numbers are going the wrong direction. We're seeing case rates continuing to be way too high. We're seeing deaths in our county are actually now averaging two a day on our rolling average - we've never been there before until the last week or two. Hospitalizations are still worrying.
In regard to our city government employee numbers, we had 16 cases for eight months, then we had 16 cases in one month of November. And that's mostly spread through households. It's not happening at the workplace generally.
Hren: The questions we've been getting into the newsroom is when do you expect Monroe County to receive the vaccine? And how will that roll out?
Hamilton: Indiana University Health as you may have heard, they've got their freezers there, they've been delivered, they're ready. They should be getting the vaccine vials any day, and they expect to begin vaccinations within a few days. I think Monday the 21st was the last date I heard as the expectation it could be a little earlier a little later. And I know once they get those vaccine vials, they're going to be trying to vaccinate as many people as quickly as they can, beginning with health care workers, direct health care workers, the heroes who've been on the front lines and then including some of our elderly in long term care facilities who are particularly vulnerable.
The vast majority of deaths are happening with older folks. And so trying to get them first, it'll move to first responders and others. And then gradually, as we get more vaccine, both types and amounts, it will extend to the wider public. And in the first quarter of 2021, I think we expect to have much wider opportunity for people to get vaccinated.
Hren: Let's get to the last week's meeting to ban camping at city parks that ended up failing after public response. And then the city decided to enforce rules that prohibit after hours camping at city parks for those experiencing homelessness. Two things, but all happened last week. Why is all this coming to heads, what's the timing reasoning?
Hamilton: This has been an extraordinary year, of course, in so many ways. Millions of dollars from the private sector and the public sector have helped create more shelter beds, helped create programs to support food access, and housing access, childcare access, and mental services and health services, those kinds of things.
We've had more use of parks and we're trying to make sure that the parks are available to everybody. We've had some parks where there have been some people in really rough shape, who are who are dealing with a lot of challenges in their lives. And we've tried to, and have been reaching out extensively to people who use the parks during the day. To try to help we created a new program called Public Health in the Parks that actually put up tables of staffed public health experts.
Now, at the same time, for many years, we've had a prohibition against overnight sleeping in the parks. And that's been consistently upheld for for many years, and helping people find places to stay if they need places to stay. And, last week, there's certain behavior requirements, and we did look at and recommended a change to the parks rules to prohibit structures, if you will, in parks during the day because there was concern that it was interrupting everybody's use of the parks.
But after that decision, we continue to allow any structures in parks during the day. But we did move forward and say continue what we've done, which is you can't camp and sleep in parks.
Hren: So we spoke to one shelter that's full, I read a report about another shelter that's full and they weren't aware that this enforcement was coming. Why wasn't that being communicated to the shelters?
Hamilton: Actually I think there was a lot of communication with the shelters. I'm not sure if the word didn't get through and around to everybody. But you know, we've been meeting every day with folks in the parks and working very closely with our partners who provide shelters or other services. In fact, the night that the change was put into place Centerstone and professionals from some of the organizations were there.
It's really important I think for people to know also that we have empty shelter beds in the city that are available to use. Many of the people who are in the parks for long periods during the day are not homeless now. They're not there because they don't have a place to sleep but they're there to use the park during the day. Offers were made to transfer anybody who needed to go to a shelter of very small numbers said yes, the majority had other places that they have been living and will continue living now.
Let me also just say, look, as a mayor, I worry, I fear that we will lose people. We can have people in the Indiana winters who can die from exposure that has happened and it's critically important that we help people who don't have a place to sleep to have a safe, warm place to sleep.
READ MORE: Downtown Rally Addresses Bloomington Homelessness
Hren: A number of people are pointing to CDC guidelines for people experiencing homelessness. I went to their website and says if individual housing options are not available, allow people who are living unsheltered or in encampments to remain where they are. Cleaning encampments can cause people to disperse throughout the community and break connections with service providers, increasing potential for infectious disease spread. So was that taken into consideration?
Hamilton: It was - you've read some of it, but the CDC guidelines, actually, there's a couple important parts of that. First, that is not generally recommended in very cold climates, it's very different. If you're talking about an encampment in Southern California through the winter versus one in Indiana, fatal conditions can get so cold.
And secondly, you did reference a couple other points. One is if there are not safe beds available, that's what the CDC recommends when there are safe beds available in our community. And it's really important. We want people to be safe. And it is not safe to be sleeping outdoors in an Indiana winter.
This particular place in Seminary Park that we're talking about, was not technically really an encampment, this was not people living there. This was activity during the day, but generally there were not people there at night. So they were living someplace else and spending time in the park during the day. And I agree that we have to be very careful about taking away those places, unless there is a better place for somebody to live.
Hren: The Indiana Supreme Court ruled today that the Indiana legislature overstepped its legal bounds in 2017, when it barred the city of Bloomington from annexing any part of Monroe County. That was through 2022. This was an appeal from a 2019 ruling. Your reaction and what happens next?
Hamilton: Well, we are gratified the Indiana Supreme Court agreed with us and with the trial court. It said the General Assembly, the state legislature unconstitutionally passed a part of the budget bill that prohibited Bloomington and Bloomington only in our annexation efforts. The Supreme Court agreed with us that this is unconstitutional. The Indiana constitution does not let the legislature pass what's called special legislation that's focused on one jurisdiction or frankly one person or one company either.
So we're very gratified with that - took three and a half years. It's frustrating that it took so long it costs public money to do the annexation that got interrupted illegally, unconstitutionally. We're going to be figuring out what the next steps are. I've just barely read the opinion. And we've got lawyers who need to weigh in and look exactly what the options are going forward. But look at you know, I went into annexation because it had been 12 years since the city had grown its boundaries. Cities need to grow their boundaries to include urbanized areas. It's now been 17 years almost since we did that, since it's taken so long to get through this.
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