WFHB Bloomington Community Radio
A new winter shelter for people without housing, run by Beacon Inc., opened less than two weeks ago, but almost every night it’s been at or near capacity, with just shy of fifty people sleeping there. Beacon rushed to open the shelter after an unprecedented number of people without housing were forced to camp in Seminary Park this winter.
Disregarding CDC pandemic guidelines, which explicitly warn against clearing encampments and the associated risk of spreading Covid-19, Bloomington Mayor, John Hamilton, twice ordered police and sanitation workers to clear the park encampment. The second clearing, which came two weeks after a man died of cold exposure at the park, sparked a number of protests, petitions, fund-raisers.
In what would be a rebuke to the Mayor, Bloomington City Council is slated to consider a new law that would afford people without housing some new protections. The law would force the City to give more notice time before clearing encampments and would regulate how the City could store people’s belongings after it cleared them from an encampment. Bloomington Human Rights Commission Member, Vauhxx Booker, made a call out for community members to live-stream the Council Meeting on February 3rd.
Indiana’s Department of Health doesn’t publish data on Covid-19 fatalities in it’s schools, but it does publish limited data on school cases. Locally, Bloomington South High School has recorded about 65 cases, in total. North High School has recorded about 30. Overall, the state has seen more than 24,000 student cases and over 11,000 teacher and staff cases. The numbers have caused Indiana’s largest teacher’s union, and Monroe County’s State Senator, Shelli Yoder, to call on Gov. Holcomb to prioritize teachers in the state’s vaccination campaign.
