‘A lack of caring’: Wilmington homeless residents question city’s efforts to provide housing after evicting them from local park

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As a train barrels along the bridge above, Boz Malik describes his daily existence since being evicted from the homeless encampment at Christina Park. Wilmington officials shut down the eastside city-sanctioned campsite on June 15.

When the city forced residents out, it promised to help provide housing for those being displaced. But months later, some of those residents are back on the streets.

Malik said he was given a motel voucher to stay at the Superlodge motel for three months, but he and other former park residents were kicked out after about a month.

WHYY News obtained a flyer given to those living at the Superlodge. It stated that they had to be out by July 15.

He’s currently living beneath an underpass near the Wilmington Amtrak/SEPTA station.

“[City officials] started it, stopped it, put us in hotels, threw us out and threw us back out on the street in less than a year,” Malik said. “Now that we’re out here, [Wilmington police] don’t tell us we have to leave, but they push us around. ‘You can’t have this, you can’t have that. We’re throwing this out.’”

Wilmington Mayor John Carney announced last October that the city would allow a homeless encampment at Christina Park, while banning sleeping outside in all areas of the city.

Officials started issuing residents tents in April, only to announce in May that it was shutting it down. The park was fenced off and guarded by police officers as volunteers worked to help residents pack their belongings and leave.

Malik said the underpass, which lacks a place to shower or use a bathroom, is subject to sweeps by city officials, which the mayor’s office denied.

“If you’re not here with your belongings, when they come to clean, they throw everything in the trash. Doesn’t matter what it is,” he said. “Food, clothes — could be your medication, driver’s license, passport — doesn’t matter. They really don’t care. I mean, it’s a lack of caring.”

Deputy Chief of Staff Daniel Walker said the city power-washes the area weekly to eliminate “trash, dirt and human waste.”

Frederick Allen Hodgson, a former Christina Park resident, said he was in the hospital when the city closed the homeless encampment. Hodgson, who identified himself as a Vietnam veteran, said when he returned to the park, all of his belongings were gone.

“They took the tent, all my stuff. This is all I own,” he said, gesturing to his wheelchair.

At the time of the encampment’s closure, Carney’s office said 52 people were placed or scheduled to be placed in housing. Deputy Chief of Staff Daniel Walker said currently about 20 people are in 90-day placements with private landlords or in shelters or group homes. Walker said a day center could potentially open by January.

Friendship House, the nonprofit that managed the homeless encampment, said it was still helping about 20 former park residents, with most of those living at the Hope Center, a New Castle County homeless shelter.

Housing advocate Shyanne Miller, who has been critical of the city’s decision to open and then close the temporary homeless encampment, said there should be a review of how successful they were in placing people into long-term housing.

“The question that needs to be answered is, ‘How did it turn out? How did it work? Did you use good practices,’” she said. “The answer is obviously no.”

Friendship House CEO Kim Eppehimer said the overall number of people becoming homeless in Wilmington is only rising. About a dozen or more individuals appeared to be living under the train bridge. More people are camping at the Seventh Street skatepark in tents and mobile homes. It’s unclear whether all or some of them were previous residents of Christina Park.

The lack of shelter beds and rental assistance to keep people housed or to pay the upfront costs to secure housing continues to be a barrier to combat the homeless crisis in Wilmington and across the state.

Eppehimer said funding to help struggling families across Delaware is scarce while the number of people looking for help has risen. She said their helpline that used to get 75 to 100 voicemails a day looking for rent and utility bill assistance now receives about 600 a day.

“It is beyond our ability to do anything and I don’t know how the state’s going to handle this,” she said. “I think we’re hitting a crisis on people’s ability to stay housed. I think it’s a canary in the coal mine situation.”