Homeless permitted to use IMU facilities

Thousands of students, University visitors and faculty members hurry through the Indiana Memorial Union every day. Some use the building to study or buy food while others use the facility to take a nap.

However, a group of people that uses the building falls into a different category — the homeless. They sit at the tables outside the Back Alley watching the televisions, talking among themselves and trying to stay warm during the colder months and cool during the warmer months.

While they keep to themselves, IMU Associate Executive Director Thom Simmons said an extremely high number of homeless people have been in the Union this year compared to other years.

He said this might be because of the homeless people leaving Indianapolis around the Super Bowl and the Occupy Bloomington movement.

“As long as people come in and follow the policy and behave, they are allowed to stay,” he said.

The Union serves “as the community center for all members of the University community — students, faculty, staff, alumni and guests,” according to the IMU policy manual.

“We are a very public building and invite everyone into our building,” Simmons said.

Non-students are not allowed to use the couches as a place to sleep. It doesn’t matter whether the person is homeless.

“We don’t allow them to come in and use this as a sleeping place,” Simmons said.

“Students pay tuition and fees, and we separate them from the non-students.”

Simmons said it is hard to distinguish whether a person is an IU student or homeless. The Building Management Staff monitors the building from 5 p.m. to 7 a.m. and will ask nappers for their student identification cards to make sure they are students.

“They are my eyes and ears when I get to go home,” Simmons said.

However, Simmons said the Union encourages students to take advantage of the couches because that is why they are there.

“We try to make our facilities here feel like home,” he said. “If we didn’t want people taking naps on sofas we wouldn’t have them here. That is the atmosphere we are trying to create here for students to feel at home and feel safe and lay in public.”

While the homeless don’t have the same freedom to nap on the couches, they can use the community center as long as they don’t abuse their privileges, Simmons said.  
As long as they don’t nap or beg for money, Simmons said they are welcome to stay.

“We wish we didn’t have a homeless population in Bloomington,” he said. “I don’t think they make the Union more attractive, and I don’t think they make it not attractive to those that use the facilities.”

However, Simmons said incidents have increased this winter, with more public intoxication and other cases.

While the IU Police Department may be called for more serious disturbances, the policy manual states that it is the Union’s “hope that the Indiana Memorial staff can handle many of these disturbances without calling IUPD.”

When it is necessary to call IUPD, the staff should follow the proper procedure.

Simmons said they give a warning to people the first time, but if they do not obey the second warning, the Union staff will tell people they have worn out their welcomes, and IUPD will be called because of trespassing.

“Most will comply, but a few won’t especially in the sleeping issue,” Simmons said. “They will see other people sleeping and say that we are singling them out and want to argue about the issue.”

IUPD Chief Keith Cash said the police will respond to the people using the Union other than they should, based on the guidelines.

“The IMU employees determine who is using the facility other than its designated use,” Cash said. “So, if they determine someone is passed out, intoxicated, acting in an unusual behavior, we are contacted. So like any facility on campus, if someone is using it other than its intended purpose, the person is asked to leave. If they are violating a law, we arrest them.”

Cash said that while some of the people they are running into might be homeless, that is not why they are responding to the call.

“I don’t know that it has anything to do with if they are homeless or that we would know their housing status,” he said.

While IU allows homeless people in its Union, Purdue University has a no-tolerance policy for the homeless, Simmons said.

“They are one campus, and we are a different campus,” he said. “We want the Union to be a community center for students, faculty, staff, alumni and guests.”