Homeless resent being jailed | Columbus Ledger-Enquirer

Donna Wakley, who has lived in a tent for more than three years, doesn’t think being poor should be a crime.

Wakley, 50, was among 17 homeless people arrested in one day by Columbus police a couple of weeks ago and charged with “being tramps” and loitering.

According to Muscogee County Jail officials, all who went to Columbus Recorder’s Court were found guilty and all but one man who paid a $280 fine was sentenced to serve time in jail.

Wakley, who has severe diabetes, was ill the day of her court appearance and it was postponed. Wednesday morning, her case was dismissed because of an error about the court date. Her response was “thank God.”

She recalled the morning she was arrested. “I was asleep and all of a sudden I have a bright light shining in my eyes. Officers told me to get my clothes on and come on out. They told me I shouldn’t be on the property but there are no signs saying it’s private and it’s the same spot that the police have brought me blankets and doughnuts at Christmas.”

Her boyfriend Neal Edwards, 31, asked officers what he was being arrested for and when the answer was loitering, he said to police, “How can that be? I’m sleeping.”

The arrests occurred between midnight and 6:15 a.m. in the areas of Third Avenue and 16th Street, Third Avenue and 10th Street and near First Avenue and 23rd Street.

Wakley and Edwards live at the First Avenue location, which is very close to an entrance to the Chattahoochee Riverwalk.

A couple of days before the arrests, a cyclist told police she was attacked and nearly raped by a man near the north end of the Riverwalk.

“An officer told me the mayor wanted us cleared out,” Wakley said.

This week, Mayor Jim Wetherington said, “I did not order any sweep. I don’t know where she heard that.”

Asked about the arrests a couple of days after the sweep, Columbus Police Maj. Julius Graham said police had received complaints about loitering and vandalism. “We check often,” Graham said. “Several people were warned about being there. We’ve had several incidents to occur.”

Wakley said police did not mistreat them in any way when making the arrests.

She and Edwards reside out of the public’s sight in a vacant weed-covered lot under a cluster of trees. There are two other tents near the big, blue one in which they live but they haven’t seen the residents of one of those since the arrest. There is a small grill and garbage cans. Chained to a tree is Wakley’s guard dog, “Beast,” who seems more bark than bite, and a cat called “Feisty.”

Wakley said her lifestyle is just like camping. “I’ve been camping a long time.”

The native of Brooklyn, N.Y., came south about 13 years ago. She said she was fired from a job as a cook at Fort Benning because of an argument and couldn’t find other work. She receives disability checks from the government because, she said, she is schizophrenic. She has already lost a toe to diabetes. “I’ll lose more,” she said.

“We don’t do any begging,” said Edwards, who said he spent 10 days in jail on the loitering charge. “We don’t steal or hurt anybody. We just want to be left alone.”

Both take advantage of the shower program at the Open Door Community House and whatever services other Columbus shelters offer. Several of the other homeless who come to Open Door said there has been recent police harassment but executive director Kim Jenkins said she hadn’t heard of any.

“There are places for people to stay off the streets but not nearly enough for the number of homeless. Some are just for men and you can’t stay long,” Wakley said.

Liz Dillard is executive director of the Homeless Resource Network. She said there could be more than 2,000 homeless in this area.

“It doesn’t make much sense to put the homeless in jail,” she said. “Taxpayers carry that cost. I just don’t know if that is a good use of resources. The homeless go to jail, then are back on the streets.”

Told about the attack on the Riverwalk, Dillard said the homeless are “more likely to be victims.”

“If there is a real problem with someone then that needs to be taken care of,” she said.

Wetherington mentioned the network, formerly the Metropolitan Columbus Task Force for the Homeless, as the positive way Columbus deals with the homeless. The agency offers information on a multitude of community resources such as shelters, employment services, medical services and agencies where affordable housing may be found.

Wakley said many of the places she has seen to rent are worse than where she lives. “Slums,” she said.

Jenkins said she has seen a rise in the number of homeless — “a lot of new faces.”

Told of the arrests, she said, “it shouldn’t be a crime to be homeless.”

Wetherington said it isn’t good for Columbus to have people sleeping on and under bridges. “Some people like that lifestyle,” he said. “Some unfortunately have no choice. Ideally, we wouldn’t have this problem, but, like other cities across the country, we do. We just try to deal with it and do the best we can.”

Staff writer Alan Riquelmy contributed to this report.