Posted on 08/28/2007 2:18:10 PM PDT by Diana in Wisconsin
David Long, a sixth-grade teacher at Hamilton Middle School, compares the situation to dealing with a classroom at school. The bulk of the kids are great, but a couple of troublemakers spoil the whole dynamic.
"It's that kind of situation, I think," he said, talking about the band of nomads who have taken up residence on his street.
Long, 40, and his wife live on the 1200 block of East Wilson Street and have raised two kids there. But they have been the unwitting "hosts" to a street full of "car campers," people -- some of them homeless, others who have made a lifestyle choice -- who live out of their vehicles.
By nature, residents on the 1100 and 1200 blocks of East Wilson Street, bounded by Ingersoll and Baldwin streets, are tolerant people. The streets, back behind Williamson Street and adjacent to the future site of the city's Central Park, hold a handful of homes and a large apartment building across from a self storage business. The two blocks are book-ended by resources that help the homeless: Port St. Vincent, a shelter for homeless men, and the Luke House, which offers free meals.
"We're a bunch of liberals here and everyone knows it," said Long, who has lived in his home for 10 years and realizes that people have lived in their vehicles on the street longer than he has been a homeowner there.
In fact, some of the people in the car camper community say the tradition dates back to the 1960s or longer.
All of the car-camping denizens interviewed for this story maintain that they are quiet, peaceful and good neighbors to those who own homes on East Wilson Street. But in recent years, with new development reaching the blocks and plans for Central Park on the horizon, tensions and aggravations seem to be mounting.
Smashing cans at 5:30 a.m.
Long, who doesn't want his exact address published for fear of retribution, said that car camping has always been a problem, but a small one. The car campers would move in seasonally. Most were single, middle-aged and older men. They were usually polite, with some even asking if it was OK to park in front of their homes or asking if residents needed a parking spot, Long said.
"We occasionally had to ask people to be quiet late at night, but we also met some interesting people who seemed to respect us as their neighbors," he said. "I think many of us living on the street were willing to tolerate their presence as we perceived them to be homeless and lacking resources," he said.
In the last few years, Long has noticed a change. People are coming in larger groups and staying for more of the year. He surmises that word has spread over the years that East Wilson Street in Madison, WI is a place where you can live in your car and not be harassed.
"It's kind of a cool Madison thing. It's only when you live here," he said.
The tone of the relationship has also changed in the past few years.
"We get no respect," Long said, detailing the illegal acts of the car camping community. People do major work on their vehicles, park on the terrace, store their vehicles for more than 48 hours and park in unregistered vehicles.
In recent years, the group of car campers has turned much more belligerent, making noise at night and completely ignoring other people's needs, Long said. His wife has regularly gone out to ask people to be quiet, he said. She got up at 5:30 a.m. a couple of weeks ago to ask somebody to stop smashing their aluminum cans with a hammer. The person, who was trying to earn cash by recycling cans, was actually apologetic, Long said.
"It just never seems to end," Long said. "It's hard to come home. If you are away at a stressful job all day and you just want to come home and relax, you come home to something that is not relaxing at all usually."
At home with the law
Police Capt. Cam McLay, head of the department's traffic bureau, said there is no ordinance forbidding people from sleeping in their cars.
On a recent Wednesday night, the street was quiet and the only obvious car campers were in two old RVs, a 1970s van and an old Union Cab van.
Mike, who didn't want to have his last name published, has an apartment in Janesville, but has been doing work in Madison as part of Laborers' Local 464. While in town, he lives out of his 1974 Dodge Coachman motorhome.
"Here is one of the rare spots in town were you don't have to move your vehicle every single day," said Mike, 45. He heard a rumor that the city was going to change the parking restrictions and make East Wilson Street two-hour parking, but Capt. Mary Schauf of the Madison Police Department's Central District said there are no such plans.
However, Ald. Marsha Rummel, who represents the district, is holding a neighborhood meeting tonight about "possible changes to parking regulations" on the 1100 and 1200 blocks of East Wilson Street.
"I am interested in neighbors' thoughts and recommendations on how the city should address the issue of car camping and homelessness," she said in a notice about the meeting, which will be held at 7:15 p.m. at Luke House, 310 S. Ingersoll St.
Schauf said that ordinances related to noise and other disorderly behaviors are enforced.
"We do need a probable cause for the citations to be issued. This generally involves investigation of a complaint, and is situational based on what the officer's inquiry finds. While those options only deal with bad behavior after it occurs, we are looking for solutions that are proactive and preventative, which is why other alternatives are being considered," she said.
Mayor Dave Cieslewicz has heard from the neighborhood about this problem, shares their concerns, and wants to see this issue resolved soon, said mayoral spokesman George Twigg.
"The mayor believes this is a quality of life issue for the families who live in this neighborhood, and that it's time to put a solution in place," Twigg said. "This is a tolerant neighborhood, but the current situation can't continue."
'Gypsy Row' or Madison icon?
As it stands, there is a restriction against parking 48 hours in one spot. Car campers also need to move from the south side of the street on Mondays and from the north side of the street on Tuesdays for street sweeping May 1 through November 15.
"If you are lucky enough you move across the street then on Tuesday you move it back," said Mike, chain-smoking Newport cigarettes in his camper. He is one of the few who has hot and cold running water and a shower. Most of the car campers go to Orton Park or the BP on Williamson Street to use the bathroom, he said.
Mike calls the 1100 and 1200 blocks of East Wilson Street "Gypsy Row" and said his brother had a full sized bus that he lived out of on the street in the 1960s. "It was shaded. People would park in the dark and nobody would be able to see them," Mike said.
The street runs parallel to a rail line and is part of the Isthmus Bike Path.
"We're next to Willy Street. It's a bohemian part of the city. People welcome us," said Mike, adding that the parked vehicles make a good noise barrier, insulating the neighborhood from the trains.
A $12-million, 76-unit apartment project at East Wilson and South Ingersoll Streets, overlooking the proposed Central Park, is going up where Badger Cab Co. used to have its headquarters. Mike and others who sometimes call East Wilson Street home, speculate that when the development is completed it will put an end to car camping on the street.
"That will effectively wipe out a lot of history. Another Madison icon evaporating," Mike said.
Mike said that the community polices itself and it gets rid of the types of people that neighbors complain about.
"There are a couple of riffraff but we weed them out real quick. The people on the row expel the troublemakers. We police our own," he said.
John, who like others in this article, didn't want his last name used, works 35 hours a week "turning wrenches," and said "dimes to doughnuts" once the new apartment development is up, it will attract more police to the area.
"This place is being gentrified, is it not?"
When more wealth comes into an area, there is an attitude of "I don't want to look at that," John said, about the population of vehicle dwellers. "That is just the logic of human nature."
John admits that some of the street campers will kick back on Friday and Saturday nights and get a little more rowdy.
"People want to enjoy life," he said. "I try to stress, enjoy all you want just don't step on anybody's toes."
John said that it is well known that police send people living out of their cars over to the 1200 block of East Wilson Street instead of having them set up shop in student districts or posher parts of town.
Capt. Schauf said she could not speak to whether police steer "car campers" to East Wilson Street. "The department does not encourage it, but an individual officer may direct people," she said.
Living in a van down by the railroad
Wayne, 59, a semi-retired teacher, has been living in his 1978 Dodge van for the last 3 1/2 years. He has been living in vehicles on and off for 16 years. He stays in Madison for the summer and fall and in the winter and spring he goes to Arkansas, where the winters are more mild.
Wayne is a member of the Willy Street Co-op and enjoys the diversity of people living in the area. He calls the 1200 block of East Wilson Street "one of the few places where you can live in your vehicle and not get hassled by police."
Schauf responds by saying that Madison police officers should not be "hassling" anyone.
"The officers are expected to respond to complaints or deal with on-site violations with an investigation and then use appropriate tools. Much of the disposition of a case is dependent on the specific issues of the case," she said.
Wayne is originally from McFarland and has tried to live in his van there but people have always called the police on him.
"I'm insulted and harassed just because I am different from them," Wayne said. "People have a lot of reasons and a lot of different types of bigotry and that 's just another form of it."
Most people on Williamson Street are accepting of different values and different lifestyles, he said.
"People don't realize how much they lose by trying to make everyone around them just like them," he said. "A diverse community is far richer."
If the city makes it difficult for people to live on the block or in the area, Wayne said he will go someplace else.
"I have a lot of talents and things I've learned from living all over the country," said Wayne, sitting on the floor in the middle of his tidy van.
As far as the car camping community causing rowdiness and other trouble, Wayne said more noise comes from the permanent residents. There have been a few times when people living in their vehicles get too noisy, but they know if they start creating a disturbance they will get hassled by neighbors and police.
"People make up a lot of rationalizations for trying to make everyone around them just like them," he said. "There are a few people who can't deal with anyone who's different and they're the ones who complain."
Paths to street life
Amy Mondloch lives around the corner on the 300 block of South Baldwin Street.
She said that she thinks the community needs to deal with homelessness at a deeper level.
"Getting rid of car camping here doesn't solve anything," she said. "We have to figure out why people are homeless and work with them side by side to change that situation."
Mondloch said there are a lot of homeless people in the area and the number is growing.
"We have to stop just pushing them around. We decide what neighborhood is a bad neighborhood and push them out of that neighborhood and nothing changes by doing that."
Lisa Savage, 45, is homeless. She has been living alone in an old Union Cab van on the 1200 block since June 1, when her husband was arrested after a four-hour standoff with police. He had barricaded himself in the van on the 2400 block of Pennsylvania Avenue near Madison Area Technical College after allegedly trying to strangle her.
Joel Savage was charged with second-degree reckless endangerment, disorderly conduct while armed and failure to comply.
Lisa Savage has been living on Wilson Street on-and-off for three years. She and her husband, who she calls "differently abled," became homeless after she lost her job and their landlord kicked them out of the duplex they had lived in for five years.
"It's OK most of the time," she said about living out of her vehicle. Savage said that she and others on the block try not to disturb anyone else and don't suffer a lot of nonsense.
"We don't put up with funny people, bad guys -- the loud, the rowdy, the basket case drunks, the perverts," Savage said.
For the most part, it's quiet and the neighbors accept them, Savage said.
"Some of the residents at least do treat us as neighbors," she said. "Anywhere else in town people get scared of us like we are going to break into their house."
Neighbor David Long, however, is tired of being neighborly, of being welcoming, of being a "host." He has sympathy for the homeless, but points out that most of the car campers are on the street by choice.
"We have a homelessness problem in this town as well as in the country. And that's one reason why we have been sympathetic to people living here. Homelessness is a problem."
Long said he is not sure what percentage of the people who live on his street in vehicles are homeless.
"My experience was that the people who were living out here who were genuinely homeless tended to make pretty good neighbors. They were people with some needs who were living here for a reason. They didn't have anywhere else to live."
He said he heard from more than one car camper that they were scared to go live in a shelter.
But, for a lot of them, it is not homelessness, but a lifestyle choice, that has them living out of their vehicles.
"It changes the nature of the debate or discussion a little bit," Long said.
There aren't many homes on the 1200 block of East Wilson Street, and he often gets that kind of attitude, "there aren't that many houses there," he said.
"There aren't that many houses, but this is our neighborhood. This is where we live. It's still our home."
Typical.
Does that make me less of a caveman?
The homeowners were only too happy to hang out with strays, but get upset when the fleas become a problem. Go figure.
This looks like another “Dog, meet your fleas” situation.
A publiKKK skewl teacher in Madison is a lib? Shocking!
If the van is rockin’, don’t come knockin’!
Somebody needs to tell them about the Walmart parking lot.
I think he puts it well at the end: those trying to survive aren’t the problem, it’s the ones who make it a ‘lifestyle choice,’ because it’s ‘hip’ or they want to drop out, not work, or just don’t give a crap, and their selfishness reflects in all areas of their behavior.
I'm sure her "solution" involves assloads of other people's money.
The homeless are deranged and they want to be homeless. Why can't the bleeding heart lib morons see the obvious?
Was it a Scamp?
What, no Chris Farley pics?
Here’s a brand with a name you can relate to: http://www.jayco.com/php/products/camping.trailers/trailer.php?id=146
Silly liberal. I'd send my friends Smith and Wesson out to enforce the peace.
bump for later
How wonderful it would be if Madison were sufficiently respectful of the Constitution that something like that would be possible...without being arrested. Most (not all) cops in Madison don’t do much besides writing tickets to suck money into government coffers, blocking off streets to accommodate liberal protest groups, and cleaning up the mess after someone gets assaulted or whacked. But if you want to see some real energetic police action just try exercising your 2nd Amendment rights in Madison.
The problem can be solved by giving them maps, to build the future for our children.
You mean they allow evil Wal-Marts in Madison? I'm shocked and appalled!
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