Syracuse, Ny-Die Humen was hung at the top of a new chainlink window at the end of the Dickerson Street on Wednesday morning.
The homeless, who were taken over at the rescue mission, was able to see the city center of Syracuse and the Salt City Market, but they couldn't get there. The fence locked them up.
The street was a wide and restless path between the city center and the rescue mission, Syracuse's largest homeless shelter.
The workers came early Wednesday morning and set up a number of chain fences. They are closed and closed.
The step was a surprise for the rescue mission and its customers, whose view of the city center is now interrupted by the fence and a sign: dead end.
The Dickerson Street has been a source of difficulties for years. The homeless and the people they hunt gather there. Many fight mental illnesses. On most days you can see drug sales, fights and overdoses. And since the city's housing crisis worsened, they also have the problems on the short road.
A video from August 2024 shows the difficulties in the Dickerson Street, right in front of the rescue mission.
They also spill down to the Southern end of the city center, which is located directly opposite the Dickerson Street. The area is revitalized and people do not overdose the sidewalk for business.
Last year the city and the rescue mission tried new ways to bring Dickerson order, but when the sun finally came out and brought people and anger, the city decided that a little more had to be done.
“We only try to prevent people from preventing people who are on the rescue mission,” said Kieran Coffey, a spokesman for the Syracuse Police Department.
The city decided that it was time for a fence. The police held the clock while the DPW workers installed the fence. The solution is one of the dozens that have been thrown in the Dickerson Street that feel like measures but do not achieve the underlying problem – a steadily increasing homeless population that has to deal with drug addiction and mental illnesses that have no place during the day.
Fences have two sides.
The rescue mission's customers were angry on Wednesday morning. They didn't feel protected. They felt cage. They murmured it and screamed it. We are not criminals. It looks like a prison.
Dan Sieburg, CEO of the rescue mission, said that the idea of the fence was floating at a meeting last month. He didn't like it.
“The rescue mission and I myself have never been to block fences who built poor people, people in our protection against access in the city center,” said Sieburg.
He said he would like to see that the police took more measures against the drug dealers who camping on the Dickerson Street. The mission also pays more than $ 500,000 a year if police officers offer security outside of service on campus.
“Planning and development in the community was always about building bridges, not fences,” said Sieburg.
He is worried about how to cut the road on emergency vehicles. He observed how two ambulances made precarious three-point tunos after two overdoses on Wednesday morning at the end of the blocked street. Annual vans come at least twice a day. There is a lock on the fence that would enable the city to open it in an emergency.
Meg O'Connell, Managing Director of Philanthropic Avundation, is on the other side of the fence. The Salt City Market and the renovation of the nearby Chimes building are both projects of the foundation that aim to revitalize the southern end of the city center.
In the past few weeks she has had to double security on the market because the problems of the Dickerson Street went to her property and your bathroom.
Overdoses are the most common problem, she said.
“You don't want to see fences anymore, but at the same time you have to do something,” said O'Connell.
She said she often speaks to people who hang out before the mission and those who appear on the market. She asks her why they are there. The most common answer was that you would otherwise have no place.
But they are also in the Dickerson Street because it is a bit like a no man's land without a simple solution. The rescue mission does not polish the sidewalk. They are not their property and the troublemakers are mainly their customers, they say.
The drug sales are mainly spike, a problem that connects the chaos of Dickerson Street. The city has fought problems with the turnover of the illegal drug because it is synthetic and the ingredients constantly change. This makes it difficult and expensive to pursue criminal law.
Many of the rescue mission customers and the people they hunt also fight with mental illnesses.
O'Connell said that the county and the city are working on opening a kind of drop-in center for people who need a place to go to the day.
“We tried to be a real partner of the rescue mission, the county and the city to find solutions to serve people with serious addiction and psychological health problems,” said O'Connell.
The surveyors Scott Littlefield and Joe Gray were in the middle of the chaos of the Dickerson Street last week. They worked around the rescue mission and carried out measurements for a city's revitalization project.
On Tuesday, when they asked the parking lot near the rescue mission, a woman came to them and screamed racist unrest, they said. Another person calmed them down and pulled them back.
When they arrived to end the work on Wednesday morning, the fence rose and the group of people who hang in the shade on the nearby bridge were angry.
They shouted at the city workers, but at 10:30 a.m. there were two police cars and hardly any people in the Dickerson Street.
But the group didn't disappear. They were only moved to Gifford Street. It is part of the campus rescue mission, but much less populated. There are no protective helpers who get by from time to time to check people. No large windows on the street.
People were angry over the heat and fence.
It's like a concentration camp, said a man.
Another man rode past his bike and screamed. He held a bag of spike in his hand.
He and a woman began to fight.
Then he rode and screamed around the fences into the city center.
Marnie Eisenstadt writes about people and public affairs in Central New York. Contact them at any time e-mail | Cell 315-470-2246.