Capt. Niemann has assigned his Community Policing officer to this area to see if the officer can make some headway with this series of problems. Beat officers will also be increasing patrols in the area as possible to reduce some of this activity.

Our Community Policing Officer went inside Cornerstone and spoke with the Services Supervisor. He promised that he would have it cleaned up by end of business tomorrow. He asked that we continue to patrol their lot when available for drinking and panhandling violations. There is a designated "smoking" area behind the building that becomes a loitering hangout. Most of the people who hang out there, he says, are allowed to do it.

The officer then stopped by the law firm at 811 W Morgan St. This office is adjacent to the run-down laundromat and convenience store strip mall with the State-owned lot behind it. (This location was mentioned in one of the SeeClickFix emails as having a run-down fence that the homeless stand behind to drink and urinate). While walking behind the building, the officer came upon a trespasser sleeping on a mattress with pillows and clothes everywhere, in the bushes behind the law firm. He worked with an attorney to trespass the man and had him throw away all his trash. The attorney indicated he would try to clean up bottles, etc. The building is being bulldozed and made into a parking lot.

Next, the officer went by the Bradsher Insurance Agency at 727 W. Morgan St, where the SeeClickFix issue indicated that the homeless were bathing and brushing teeth in the water spigot. I spoke with Mr. Bradsher himself. He plans on removing the spigot altogether and seeing if this moves the homeless along. There are already "No Trespassing" signs on the rear of his property, so after removal of the spigot, this may just be a matter of trespassing enforcement.

Finally, the officer stopped by the commercial office building at 727 W. Hargett St. This was presented in the SeeClickFix as having a knocked down fence in the back with a homeless camp and "access to the train tracks." The officer located the area from the photograph, which was behind the dumpsters on the rear, left corner of the lot. There was a make-shift shelter and a few mattresses back there, along with numerous alcohol bottles. He talked to some tenants of the building, most of who did not know that there were any homeless back there. He called the building's owner, Mikels and Jones Properties, and spoke with Mr. Jones. He informed Mr. Jones of the risk to his tenants by having the homeless set up shop on his property. He called his maintenance manager into the room (while on speaker phone) and had me detail what needed to be done. The maintenance crew is going to clean up the homeless camp and repair the fence, per Mr. Jones. He said that they may call Police to trespass any homeless that are back there at the time of the clean-up. He expects this to be done by end of business, tomorrow.