Ty Osborne grew up at Stahl Furniture. That’s no exaggeration — his father has managed the store since 1976 and bought it from Ray Stahl in the early 2000s.
“Now my son's the third in the business,” Osborne said. “He's third generation of Osbornes running the store, and I want to have a location where he's got a future, and where I've got a future.”
That location, he said, isn’t in Bloomington.
Just south of downtown on Walnut St., businesses and property owners like Osborne say they’re losing business over problems caused by street homelessness. Despite the efforts of local government and nonprofits, some locals said they haven’t seen improvements.
“A lot of days we come to work, and we have to work an hour just to open up our front door with all the paraphernalia, food and clothing and bedding that's been left there,” Osborne said.
Along those blocks south of Third Street are a number of empty lots and storefronts: former sites of Arby’s, Bedrӓk Café and Monroe Co. Equipment Company to name a few. Osborne believes they remain unoccupied because of the increase in street homelessness in the last 15 years.
August is usually his busiest month, but this year he said he couldn’t run an outdoor tent sale. Osborne is selling as much merchandise as he can and looking for a new location outside of town.
“As far as I'm concerned, I've been ran out of Bloomington,” Osborne said. “Bloomington is our town. It's where we grew up and the town we love. I'd prefer to be in Bloomington, but we're definitely keeping our options open.”
Whether or not street homelessness is the root of Osborne’s financial woes, its visibility is undeniable. Local ice cream shop The Chocolate Moose has existed under various names since the 1930s and some of its longterm workers such as director of operations Jordan Davis have seen these issues for years.
“I don't know if it's more of an issue within the community than it has been in the past, but for where we're at in between the bus station, the park, liquor store, all of it, it's been an issue for the whole time,” he said.
Davis said he does what he can to help, such as raising money and handing out water. At least one former coworker from the Chocolate Moose ended up homeless and living on the street nearby. Davis said he has good relationships with many homeless neighbors. Not everyone, though, is respectful toward his store and employees, and he’s had to deal with threatening behavior.
“There's so many people that we know their names and we know their stories, and we want to be there for them, but then there's a handful that kind of ruin it for everyone else,” Davis said. “It's always tough. A lot of people will see some of the negatives and group the whole community into that. We try not to do that.”
But Davis thinks the city is on the right track.
“It's not going to happen overnight, and I think it's going to be a whole community effort to really get things to continue to move forward in a significant way,” he said.
Overnight change may not be a realistic expectation, but for businesses that have dealt with the side effects of homelessness for years, frustration has reached a boiling point.
Discourse on social media has at points turned against local officials and nonprofits. Eric Spoonmore, president of the Bloomington Chamber of Commerce, said the problem isn’t the fault of one entity but that online conversation reflects frustrations that need to be addressed.
“What I'm hearing from my membership is that things are not improving,” he said. “This is at a time where we have more local resources than ever being committed towards street homelessness in the community.”
The Chamber wants to see clearer enforcement rules for criminal trespass and better communication between property owners and the city. Spoonmore said city, county and business leaders need to articulate a clear plan, and so far, they haven’t done so.
“I have not seen what that unified strategy is from the leaders whose jobs it is to provide that accountability for behavior in the community,” he said.
But holding people to account for violations such as trespass and littering is complicated for a few reasons, said Forest Gilmore, executive director for Beacon. He runs the Shalom Center, a day shelter for unhoused people on South Walnut.
“These are crimes that are most definitely troubling and annoying and challenging, but they're not necessarily dangerous,” Gilmore said. “They're just nuisances.”
When someone reports camping on private property, police will issue a trespass warning. Depending on the number of people, moving them can take time.
Arresting people for nuisance crimes, said Mayor Kerry Thomson, won’t solve the issue.
“Just to be clear, we’re not going to arrest our way out of this, and we really believe that we need to serve people before there’s criminal activity,” she said.
Thomson recognizes that the community’s response to homelessness hasn’t been working. And so far, community leaders haven’t reached agreement on a strategy.
The city provides grant money for small businesses to enhance their property’s safety and hygiene. It says it’s provided around $23,000 in safety improvement grants to businesses on South Walnut specifically.
It also installed a portable toilet in Seminary Park and recently arrested eight people there on drug possession and distribution charges.
Read more: Bloomington’s new approach to homelessness is to help neighboring towns help themselves
But relief for the area may come from a new facility on West Third Street. Beacon plans to break ground later this month, drawing some of the homeless population elsewhere. The plan is a major expansion and relocation that has received support from business leaders such as Spoonmore, who co-chaired its fundraising committee.
The new center will include 25 apartments, overnight housing and offices on site from service providers.
Gilmore said that’ll help a lot of people. But the issues that cause homelessness, a national drug epidemic and generational poverty, will continue to manifest in Bloomington.
“That's not something that services control, that's something that our society is creating,” Gilmore said. “It doesn't necessarily indicate that services aren't working because our society is creating worse situations for people.”
Read more: City sues to recover $685K invested in Crawford Apartments
Thomson hopes the new facility, along with the completion of the long-delayed Monroe Convention Center project, will gradually revitalize South Walnut.
“It won't be an overnight remodel, but I think we're going to get there, and those properties are going to come back online,” she said.
But Osborne said that even if community leaders change their approach, it’s too late for Stahl Furniture.
“There's nothing they can do at this point to make me stay here or want to stay here,” he said. “The damage that's been done has been done for many, many years in this location.”
