September 22, 2018
Homeless in Louisa?
LOUISA, KY. — There has been a noticeable problem with homeless living outside in town such as under the bridge down by the river, railroad tracks and in some public park areas.
“We have noticed an uptake in homeless people around Louisa,” Louisa mayor Harold Slone told The Lazer.
Slone said he has has spoken with some of the homeless personally about their situation. He did not say what he found out.
Mayoral challenger Eddie Wayne Michael said he is hearing a lot of complaints about the apparently homeless people sleeping in the city park. “I’ve heard people say they are pitching tents on the riverbank and around the parks,” Michael said. “It is definitely something that needs to be addressed and soon.”
Police Chief Greg Fugitt and Council member Matt Brown have contacted some surrounding area agencies and have dates planned to visit with some of those to see how they are handling the situation, Fugitt said.
Huntington City Mission and Pikeville are just a couple. Then they intend to share that information with the community, Mayor Slone said.
“This just isn’t a city issue, it’s an issue that affects everyone and it looks like small towns across Appalachia are getting worse,” Slone said. “The closest shelters are in Ashland, KY or Huntington, WV.”
So far the only complaints to the police have been when they overuse public spaces such as the Louisa parks. There was evidence of make shift camp sites along the river banks and under the bridge.
–According to a source who asked not to be identified there have been two minor teenage girls living under the bridge on the Ft. Gay side, that are/were prostituting themselves to survive.
Tina Jackson, of Louisa, has noticed a “tent city” of homeless people located near her home, she said in a Facebook post this week. Trash, she says, is being left by the railroad tracks including used needles.
When asked if there was something being done, Louisa Council member and ARC executive Matt Brown responded that, “Homelessness is becoming more of an issue throughout Eastern Kentucky.”
Brown said he is in the process of touring a few homeless shelters to determine what could possibly work in Louisa.
“This is a serious issue we plan to address with strategic thinking, innovation, partnerships, compassion and dignity.” He plans to keep the progress of this situation updated on his Facebook page.
Pastor Daniel Castle and Ron Dye are both working towards providing a homeless shelter with the help of God and the community.
We hope this raises awareness throughout Lawrence County and surrounding areas of the problem and need for solutions..
If some of these people that own all these empty houses I see would just take the time to fix them up or SELL THE PROPERTY to someone that will! It breaks my heart to see so many homeless people and then see empty houses. HUMANITY should be put BEFORE the all mighty dollar!
Charge and arrest them for trespassing and loitering. I thought the city had a curfew ordinance to enforce as well.
Louisa is in need of a shelter for those down on their luck. Not everyone has friends & family they can stay with until back on their feet.
Why not think about the elderly before drug addicts and prostitutes? Don’t you realize there are elderly that has no transportation to get to grocery stores, to get medicine or to get to Drs Appts? Don’t you realize some elderly does not have the luxury of a phone, enough money to keep nice and warm in winter or cool in the summer? Most elderly have no clue how to get help and sometimes their pride won’t allow them to ask for help. They do however take help when offered. Why are we not seeing the city and county officials being as concerned about creating programs aim at helping them? Why are you not talking about building something that will benefit our elderly.
You want to sweep them under the rug to provide for the addicts and prostitutes. Those addicts and prostitutes are choosing to be the way they are, they are choosing to be homeless. None of us would be here without the elderly. Take the money you want to spend on the useless ones and fund meals, transportation and care for the elderly.
Before you say that’s way to harsh to call addicts and prostitutes useless think about how useless you are in helping the elderly.
Take the meals to the elderly, repair their homes, mow their grass, sit and talk with them. Spend the money on the ones that has built this area. Put your priorities in order!!!
A single mother is working as a waitress. Makes enough to provide a decent life for her kids. She shows up to work and the doors are locked. Out of business with no warning. She starts looking for work but rent and bills are due now. She gets evicted before finding a new job and her and her child are out on the street as they have no family to stay with. With no access to water or anything, she has to go to interviews dirty and unkempt so nobody will hire her. Now she is stuck. Lost her car so she can’t look for work anywhere but her immediate area so she is forced to live in a tent by the river with her child. You assume all homeless people are addicts who CHOOSE to live a terrible life…why? Your ignorance and lack of education are disgusting. Also, please tell me how you personally help the elderly? How much have you donated?
“Rob”, I’m sure you had so much empathy that you took that female and her child into your home…right???? You apparently did not read my comment about what I volunteer to do for the elderly on my time and with my money. So who is the ignorant one…here’s looking at you “Rob”. Be careful and don’t lie about taking the homeless into your home because trust me I have ways of finding out. Drug test any of those in Louisa’s tent city and you’ll find out they are using illegal drugs or the so called “legal” from a treatment center!!!
No!!! Louisa and Lawrence County is in need of programs and more housing to care for the elderly!!! Put your priorities in place officials. Who built this city and county….THE ELDERLY DID!!! Seniors can’t all get to the senior center in town, some have no phones, no family, and no vehicles!!! Most have no clue how to get help. They are out in the county isolated.
Build something more for them, start a meals on wheels, help repair their homes so they can stay warm in the winter and cool in the summer. You are wanting to waste money on drug addicts and prostitutes that apparently does not want help before you take care of the elderly. You want to help them while turning a blind eye to the needs of our elderly. It’s disgusting and outrages!!!!
We need to help everyone. We have to start somewhere. I wish it was as simple as someone donating an empty house. The money has to come from somewhere to pay insurance, utilities and employees.
Talk is cheap. Volunteer to take those elderly neighbors. There’s a senior bus that will pick up the seniors and take them places.
I DO VOLUNTEER MY TIME TO HELP THE ELDERLY!!! Why the he## do you think it upsets me to see money wasted on the addicts and prostitutes? They have ARC to go to and they know it!!! Your statement was anidiotic one!!! I am only one person without the power of the city council or Lawrence County Fiscal Court. They know who and how to get grants and who to go to in Frankfort to get help.
Did you not read my comment? Some of the elderly has no idea there is a senior bus, a senior center, and some does not have phones. The lazy hindends that choose to sleep in a tent, pop needles in their arms and prostitute KNOWS there are programs available but choose not to use them…except to get their free cell phones and food stamps. It’s pathetic along as you are to not put the elderly first!!!! From your stupid comment perhaps you are one with the free phone, food stamps and a needle in your arm.
THIS TOWN AND COUNTY IS IN NEED OF SHELTER AND VARIOUS PROGRAMS TO HELP A MULTITUDE OF PEOPLE. YOUNG AND OLD . POINTING FINGERS AND NEGATIVE COMMENTS ARE NOT A SOLUTION OR AN ANSWER. THIS SITUATION DID NOT JUST OCCUR OVERNIGHT. THIS HAS BEEN GOING ON FOR QUITE SOME TIME . SOME PEOPLE ARE TO PROUD TO ASK FOR HELP, SOME DON’T KNOW WHERE TO GO FOR HELP AND OTHERS HAVE BEEN HAVE BEEN DENIED AND TURNED AWAY FOR VARIOUS REASONS. WE ALL NEED TO COME TOGETHER AND HELP BE A PART OF THE SOLUTION.
Truth: Why don’t you post your real name? Do you think your comment in all caps is suppose to mean something? This City and County is more interested in helping those that doesn’t want help unless it’s handing them free drugs. The elderly that has built this city and county should benefit first along with our veterans!!! I never hear anything about helping those groups. Mitch Castle, John Nolan, Matt Brown, Mayor Slone….if your parents or grandparents had no family or the family did not come around and they were living in terrible conditions with little to eat, no transportation, no way to get to a Dr, no phone to call for help how would that make you feel? If it takes pointing finger and shaming the city council and fiscal court then so be it. If it takes contacting every news outlet to let them know that drug addicts and prostitutes are being placed in front of elderly and veterans then so be it. If it takes daily emails and phone calls to government agency to let them know then so be it. Not one word from any of you that has commented has been about helping the elderly or the veterans!!! You want to hide them away while you hand out freebies to the ones that does not want the help other than walking into a rehab clinic to get their next fix.
Enough of our tax dollars go to them. It’s like so many officials are being blindly lead by one thing….their monetary gain!!!
Look around Louisa folks on every other building it says Addiction Recovery Center. I think they have helped a lot of people but there’s those that doesn’t want the help.
Don’t you see that so many drug addicts are coming into this town, going into these programs, failing then camping out under the bridges and turning to prostitution because they don’t have the money to go anywhere when they fail. Louisa is turning into a drug haven!!!
Where do you think they are getting the free needles you’re finding everywhere? Now just imagine if free housing is built and addicts are put in them. How long do you think any building will last? How long before other addicts come to our little town that people love so well and moves here because others tell them there’s free shelter for drug addicts?
They go where it’s easy for them to get by with their crimes. If it’s tough they would not want to stay!!!
AGAIN..WHAT I’M SAYING IS .GET YOUR PRIORITIES IN ORDER LOUISA AND LAWRENCE COUNTY!!!
it’s hard to help people who don’t or won’t help there self!
Omg these ppl are homeless why is jail an answer for everything. It’s ppl with opinions such as that is why we don’t have shelters or help. Get your Bible out & maybe read it a lil.
Here’s one verse in the Bible that you can look up…
Leviticus 19:32
‘You shall rise up before the grayheaded and honor the aged, and you shall revere your God; I am the LORD.
A Bible alone is not going to fix it the addicts and prostitution!!! They have to take the first step. They know the help is available through Addiction Recovery Centers for their addictions and I’m sure some employees will even house them but some choose not to accept that help. I would love to see as much compassion in this community for the elderly as there is for addicts and prostitutes!!! This is what’s wrong with this world now…priorities are messed up!!
Psalms 71:9 – Cast me not off in the time of old age; forsake me not when my strength faileth.
There you go Janie. Have you read that in the Bible?
Jail is the answer for the ones committing crimes like…prostitution, illegal drug use, loitering, abusing curfews, littering, endangering the public by throwing their dirty needles down in parks and playgrounds and theft. All of which the ones in the article are doing…so there’s your answer as to why jail is the answer!!!!
If you speed through town you get a ticket and fined. If you do all that I described above about addicts and prostitutes, you get a pat on the back, free drugs and a free place to live.
What does the elderly get…cold meals out of a can, eating crackers all while waiting for someone to stop by to either fix them something nutritious to eat, to take them to the store, doing without their medicine, sitting for days on end by themselves with no one to talk to, People’s priorities are really screwed up!!!
Deanna have you ever heard that if you dont have something nice to jus t dont say wnything aat all! Besides why don’t you open your front door and lead by example thought not ,until then try keeping your tfap shut
First of all my name is Drenna!! Apparently you didn’t read my comments very well!!! I said I do volunteer…I have fed the elderly, taken them to Drs appts and the grocery store, brought them into my home and sit and talked with them for countless hours. So don’t try to preach to me. I don’t have anything nice to say when the elderly or veterans needs are placed below the drug addicts and prostitutes!!!
Put that in you pipe and smoke it…“Shelprock 13”.
I live near the said tent city where at one time had 13 tents. The people may be homeless but all the people who park their vehicles on school property to walk to tent city and walk back tell me that there’s a little more going on then homelessness and within walking distance to an elementary school! This is the problem, this is why there are complaints, people like myself do not want this kinda of unsafe activity around where I’m raising my child! The cops have been contacted and they say we know but there’s nothing we can do even with paraphernalia found. With drugs come theft and I fear it every single day because people will do anything! Everyone goes through rough times in there government programs available to help anyone that needs it. This city will quickly become as bad as Huntington with drugs, theft and crime if something isn’t done.
They are coming into Louisa because Louisa City Counsel and Lawrence County Fiscal Court are so lenient and allows this to happen. Both could write ordinances prohibiting this behavior but they won’t. The more that comes in, the more that goes through ARC, the more money that ARC’s owner and the employees pocket.
Law enforcement could be breathing down the necks of those living on the riverbanks…so who could be telling them not too…hmmm.
Drug addicts have cell phones, they can call other drug addicts from outside the city to let them know this is a “drug friendly city” so come on up. A homeless shelter is not the answer!!! If city and county officials care so much about the “homeless” in
“Louisa’s Tent Center” then by all means open the doors to your homes, and pastors open your churches to them so they have a roof over their heads…bet that won’t happen. They’ll say “oh that’s not a solution”…I’ve heard it said!!!
From what I have been told people living in tents on the riverbank are homeless ONLY because of drug addiction and family members had enough so they kicked them out…which is what they should do…you shouldn’t be an enabler.
I feel for the citizens living close to this, lock your doors and keep your children close because the officials are for sure not looking out for your best interests.
Drenna, Jasmine, and others –
I applaud your heart for the elderly. I would love to sit down with you over coffee or lunch one day and talk through the specific needs that you are seeing and assist you while you launch a ministry for this purpose. I believe Mitch, and John would be glad to do the same.
My cell number is 606.615.2872.
Looking forward to beefing up Louisa’s response to the needs of the elderly.
Blessings,
Matt Brown
So what you’re saying Matt Brown is that the Louisa City Council would get behind a program to help the elderly?
If so that would be wonderful!!!
I have a full time job plus my volunteer work with the elderly and I can’t speak for others but I would love to sit down and discuss this subject with all three of you and any other city or county officials. Please don’t waste my time and yours by saying the council will get behind this if you have no intention of doing so. Our days are numbered and I don’t want to waste a single minute of my days.