To close or not to close St. Benedict homeless camp?
The Alamosa City Council will again debate that question during a public hearing scheduled for 7 p.m. Wednesday, May 7. (Here’s a zoom link to attend the meeting virtually https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84807040356.)
The latest count this week from La Puente shows 14 campers at St. Benedict and another 48 camping elsewhere. It’s the “elsewhere” that becomes part of the conversation, with evidence of more camping showing up along the Rio Grande levees at Alamosa’s Cole Park, the Alamosa river trail system, and in the crevices of properties around town.
“That’s all back up again,” Alamosa County Sheriff Robert Jackson said this week on The Valley Pod about homeless encampments along the river corridor. “We cleared that up a couple years ago. We cleaned that all up and it’s all coming back and we’re struggling with that.”
Last fall, following a push by Alamosa Police Chief George Dingfelder to close the encampment located in south Alamosa due to what he described as a “concentrated hotbed of criminal activity,” the city council called for a new set of rules for campers at St. Benedict that they hoped would lead to a safer and more stable homeless encampment.
Dingfelder followed up by assigning police Sgt. William Squires to stay on top of any problems at St. Benedict as part of an effort for stronger code enforcement. Then in January, Alamosa police obtained a search warrant for the campsite and during the raid found suspected heroin and more than 200 fentanyl pills. Two arrests were made.
“We actually got funding to create an extra sergeant’s position within the police department. So that opened up a position. When I moved him (Sgt. Squires) over our code enforcement and our cops, and one of his first charges was, ‘We’re going to clean this up,’ Dingfelder said on The Valley Pod shortly after the January bust.On Wednesday the city council discussion “will include whether or not the city should keep the campsite and if the campsite remains open, if any changes are needed,” the city said in an announcement for the public hearing.