It’s not an easy journey to get to where Tammy, Jewel and Outlaw call home.
A muddy path eroded by years of foot traffic weaves its way to a tucked-away, wooded area of Bloomington known as Browns Woods. Decades of old trash piles live in offshoots of the path, where they’ve been abandoned during one migration or another — they said the city trash trucks don’t come here.
The three of them live in a large burnt orange tent, its interior hazy with cigarette smoke.
Tammy’s lived in the 16.7-acre patch of woods off and on for 11 years. Outlaw’s been in and out for 16. Jewel just got there two years ago but has stayed on the land since.
But in a little over two weeks, the trio and everything they own must be gone. If anything is left behind, the City of Bloomington will store it and, if not collected, dispose of it in 30 days.
The City of Bloomington served the people living in the encampment with an eviction notice Nov. 7, handing each resident a notice, Aoife Moss said. The plot has housed encampments of varying sizes for decades and has never received an eviction notice until this month, Moss, an outreach volunteer with Help Ourselves Mutual Aid, said.
Brian Giffen, the city’s homeless response coordinator, said the property that houses the encampment is owned by the Community Foundation of Bloomington and Monroe County, though it’s been used as a public space by Bloomington Parks and Recreation since 2002.
“Throughout the notice period, the City will continue working closely with local service providers to offer outreach and help residents identify safer, more stable options,” Giffen said in an email.
In a report published Thursday, the city clarified encampment closures are only done when there are immediate risks to safety — like violence, sanitary concerns or fire risks. Giffen said with this notice in particular, the city was concerned about fires, loose dogs, disturbance reports and other public health concerns, “which have increased with an increasing number of individuals in the encampment.”
Moss visits the encampment several times a week with other members of HOMA. HOMA does outreach in Bloomington with a goal of working with marginalized members of the community.
Since the notice, she spends the visits making the rounds to the various sites within the camp. She reminds inhabitants of the impending date and offers whatever help is needed. She lets them know of other camps she knows of, shelters with vacancies and tries to schedule dates where volunteers can help with the move out process.
“You got served papers about the eviction,” she told one group.
Much of the camp was abandoned after the city issued the notice. But there are still 12 residents who need to come up with a plan on where to go before the morning of Dec. 8. If they stay, they risk arrest for trespassing.
“Encampment closures are heavy, and the City uses them only as a last step in response to health and safety concerns, not as an enforcement tactic,” Giffen said in an email. “They are only carried out after sustained outreach and service engagement have been in place and other options have been offered.”
Giffen said the city worked with the encampment for nearly a year. Most of the original residents of the site have transitioned to housing or rehab, he said.
Michelle Ball has lived in the encampment since July. She said she moved to it because no shelter allowed her to keep her four dogs and cat. She works at Goodwill, which impacts where she’ll be able to move because she needs to stay within walking distance.
“We just need more...options for people that don't, you know, who can't afford to live in Bloomington,” Ball said.
She said she works daily at Goodwill, and her $12.50-an-hour wage is enough to disqualify her from food stamps and low-income housing.
Ball is in the process of moving her belongings to a friend’s trailer, an option most don’t have the privilege of.
“This is first time I've ever experienced this, so this is new to me,” Ball said. “I never doubted the homeless or never made fun of anybody, you know, or anything but it's rough. People don't realize until you've done it.”
Some tree trunks scattered throughout the encampment are adorned with “FUCK OFF” messily spray painted in white. It’s not exactly a welcome mat, but Moss knew who did it and suspected the reasoning behind it.
“The point is to look abrasive because they are used to being pushed to the margins of everything,” Moss said. “It’s not often someone comes into this place to help. Generally, anyone coming in is either here to steal something or as a cop, so it's very rare that, I don't know, outsiders are welcomed into places like this."
She said HOMA is one of the few organizations that routinely visits the encampment. The group's mindset is consistency builds trust, Moss said. The mutual trust built between the residents and volunteers encourages a more honest flow of information, allowing the volunteers into more vulnerable situations.
HOMA’s goal is to assist in the move out process prior to the Dec. 8 deadline. The organization was first invited into the Browns Woods encampment last year. Once this task is complete, there will still be more work to do within the community, Moss said.
“It is a never-ending battle, one that does not feel like there is a win in sight,” Moss said. “But despite that, these people mean the world to me...Without outreach like what we do, I mean, it's not possible for them to exist. I can't just let them go by the wayside despite whatever any opinions are. We've been pushing against a brick wall here for the past year with this outreach program and it's only getting worse.”
Jewel plans to move to a different county where she’s been accepted into a long-term homeless shelter. Outlaw will likely relocate to another Bloomington encampment, though he isn’t sure which yet.
Tammy had the option to move to free housing in a Bloomington apartment complex, but she opted to stay in the encampment. She said she's been clean from heroin for four months; something she isn't confident would be maintained with the wrong surroundings, like the housing she had access to.
She said she wants to find another place to camp when she leaves the encampment where she can spend the winter. Her plan is to “stay in the tent and survive.”
