Homeless population growing

Walking down a path beneath a bridge spanning Mulberry Creek, Kyle Weiser wasn’t sure what he would find.

The stabilization services coordinator for Catholic Charities was looking for homeless people and this was a favored spot.

“I’m Kyle with Catholic Charities. We are out looking for individuals who need assistance,” Weiser said, after seeing a man and woman under the bridge, accompanied by a dog.

The man said his name was Nick and the woman was his girlfriend.

Weiser, who has been operating the Catholic Charities’ Street Outreach mobile unit since November, went to the back of his minivan and brought back a bag of food and hygiene items.

Soon, he was on his way again, spending the rest of the morning checking local resting spots, searching for others living on the streets of Salina. When he found homeless people, he gave them food items such as soup, fruit, chips, granola bars, crackers and beef jerky and hygiene products such as toothbrushes, toothpaste, sunscreen, water, toilet paper and blankets. In the winter, he gives shoes and coats, no strings attached.

The number of homeless people in Salina is growing, Weiser says. He estimates that 30 to 50 people carry their belongings from place to place, sleeping at night in business doorways, on park benches and along the banks of the Smoky Hill River channel.

“I think a lot of Salina doesn’t realize how big a problem homelessness actually is in the city,” he said.

Catholic Charities, Saline County Community Corrections, Central Kansas Mental Health Center and law enforcement are collaborating to help homeless people and keep them out of the Saline County Jail.

Weiser said the goal is to locate the services they need to get them off the streets.

“They have to be ready. They have to be willing. I think that is one of the biggest problems,” Weiser said. “A lot of them either aren’t willing to or wanting to. The biggest thing is mental disabilities, not utilizing the services that are offered.”

Mental illness, addiction

Salina has three shelters providing services for the homeless: Ashby House Family Shelter, Salina Rescue Mission and the Domestic Violence Association of Central Kansas.

However, many homeless people struggle with mental illness issues or drug or alcohol addiction, making it difficult for them to follow rules established by those shelters.

“So what do they do? They end up on the street,” said Annie Grevas, director of Community Corrections. “If you are banned, no matter if it is 30 days, 90 days, 120 days or a lifetime, you can’t go to those shelters anymore.

“I’m not being critical of the mission or the Ashby House. I understand they have to have rules. Unfortunately, when a mentally ill homeless person is banned, no good comes from that.”

Authorities say that law enforcement officers in other counties sometimes send homeless people to Salina.

Michelle Martin, executive director of Catholic Charities, said that’s a good thing, because Salina has at least some services available.

“I don’t want to judge those counties because it is difficult to deal with the expense in a very rural area,” she said. “I am certain counties don’t have a place for them and they will give people bus tickets to go somewhere else, where they do have a place, where there are shelters. That doesn’t mean that if they just give them a bus ticket that they end up in the shelter. Most likely they end up doing something to end up in jail.”

Martin said there are few facilities for people with mental illness.

“I think that is a big part of the issue. Where do these people go with mental health and dual diagnoses?” she said.

Mobile outreach vital

Grevas said her department is supervising more people on Community Corrections who are homeless.

Weiser, a graduate of Kansas Wesleyan University, uses a minivan purchased with a grant from G.L. Huyett of Minneapolis for his Street Outreach program three days a week, helping the homeless in Salina, and a Mobile Outreach service to the poor in 31 counties of the Salina Catholic Diocese.

“Often people that need the most help don’t show up in your office, don’t come to us for a variety of reasons,” Martin said. “We have made it our mission to go out and find them.

“I think what compelled me the most was when I found out people were showing up at a business to cash in their cans to live for the day. They had bags on their feet to keep the weather away. There are more people out there than we know. My mission has been this past year to go out there and meet them where they are.”

Most are harmless

Weiser said people become proficient at living on the streets.

“I think they get accustomed to it. They get good at knowing what resources are out there and what is available to them to survive on the streets,” he said. “They hide themselves from the public pretty well and try to blend in.”

“If you get up early in the morning and go for a run or a walk on Iron Avenue you are going to see them,” Grevas said.

Human nature is to be apprehensive around the homeless but Weiser has had few incidents.

“There is a misconception out there. Every homeless person I have come in contact with has been very friendly. Very talkative, for the most part,” Weiser said.

Grevas saw a homeless man watching a tennis tournament in Oakdale Park last month.

She said some fans were uneasy.

“He was not one of my clients. He lives at the park. I’ve run into him many times,” she said. “I engaged him in a conversation to show others he was harmless.”