KALAMAZOO, MI — Sex trafficking and assault is a major issue at the Ampersee homeless encampment in Kalamazoo, said 51-year-old resident Andre Prince Lee.
“They take advantage of women on all levels,” he said.
Lee said many of the women who stay at the camp face real dangers of sexual assault or being involved in prostitution.
Related: Despite community effort, future still uncertain for many who are homeless in Kalamazoo
Former resident Tim Perry shared Lee’s sentiments in a prior interview, saying the encampment is not a safe place for women and labeling some of the men there as “wild dogs.”
Kalamazoo Public Safety spokesperson Ryan Bridges told MLive this week investigations into multiple reports of sex assaults and human trafficking at the site are ongoing. But no arrests have been made, as of yet.
While those specific issues were not highlighted in the city’s Sept. 15 announcement that it plans to close the encampment, the city did cite at that time increased rates of violence and crime among reasons the encampment will be closed on Wednesday, Sept. 29.
Related: City of Kalamazoo to close Ampersee homeless encampment Sept. 29
Bridges said Tuesday that those issues on their own are not the main impetus behind the city’s reason to close the encampment, but that they are part of the spike in reported crime.
Officers will be onsite Wednesday afternoon, he said, in an attempt to clear the encampment ahead of a 5 p.m. deadline for residents to vacate the property along the Kalamazoo River.
“The deadline still exists, and officers and service providers will continue to work with individuals to help people identify options for best-case scenarios moving forward,” Bridges said.
The city has previously said that residents of the encampment who were still on site after 5 p.m. Wednesday could be prosecuted for trespassing.
“I’m not minimizing the safety issues down there, I’m not,” said Jason Knight, connections coordinator with Urban Alliance while stating that he does not wholly agree with the city’s decision to close the encampment.
“You have trafficking, whether it’s human or drug trafficking, that’s going on,” he said. “You have a parvo outbreak and once again, that’s all safety, but you know where it’s all at.
“So, yes, there’s a spike in crime in that area, but when it gets spread all out the crime will still be there, just in different pockets of the community. That said, it isn’t fair to the business owners in the area there.”
Lee shared those sentiments, saying that many of the woman who will say they have been preyed upon, assaulted or trafficked were in that situation before the encampment popped up along Ampersee Avenue in Kalamazoo’s Eastside neighborhood.
“I don’t see what any of it has to do with homelessness,” Lee said, while questioning why the city was closing the encampment. “They talk about the land being contaminated too. But this land was toxic before we moved here, so why did they let us live here for so long and basically shove us here?
“So, what are they going to do? Shove us somewhere else and then tell us we can’t stay there too? You didn’t even know we were gonna’ be here, until we were here and now you are going to tell us to go somewhere else to tell us to go again.”
He thinks crime is just an excuse for the city to kick out those who have been staying long-term at the property.
“The police department comes out and they’ve got overdosing and they’ve got prostituted women, that’s been going on,” he said. “That isn’t about homelessness, but it’s here.”
Related: ‘I don’t know where I’m going to go,’ a common theme of homeless at Kalamazoo encampment
Knight said a challenge in relocating residents of the encampment is the mental health component.
“Most of them are caught in the mental health loop, the addiction loop because of trauma and we expect them to pick themselves up by their boot straps but we keep inflicting trauma on them,” he said. “We all want the problem solved, but the problem is, no one wants it in their backyard.”
A recent survey of 85 encampment residents, of the approximately 150 who live there, indicated about one-third of those questioned would turn to area shelters and another third, like Lee, would look for a new place to camp, Kalamazoo Deputy City Manager Laura Lam told MLive.
Several indicated they would leave the Kalamazoo area and many said they had no idea what the next step for them would be. Some residents MLive spoke to said they did not have any plans of leaving.
“There’s just no long-term solution for what to everyone else is a short-term problem,” said 44-year-old Sharon Valkema, who lives at the encampment with her husband Will. “Every time we get one step ahead, they split us up. We just want to be able to live somewhere in peace.
“Yeah, it gets rowdy here sometimes. But for the most part it’s peaceful.”
Related: Homeless encampment returns to Stadium Drive property months after people evicted
Roughly half of the Kalamazoo Gospel Mission’s 360 beds are open at this time, and another 200 beds will be available as early as next month, said John Simpson, chief operating officer of the Kalamazoo Gospel Mission.
“We stand ready to help the folks that come our direction and to partner with other providers that are doing similar work in providing supportive services so that we can impact as many people as possible,” Simpson said. “I think we are all doing better at as community partners in Kalamazoo to maximize every opportunity we have to help as many people as we can. We’ll be here for those who need us.”
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