The Bloomington city council struck down an encampment ordinance in early March, leaving members of the unhoused community vulnerable as spring approaches. Winter shelters are set to close next month, and overnight camping in city parks is illegal.

Thomas Bobbs is a 23-year-old from Bedford and a member of the Bloomington unhoused community. He spends most nights at the Beacon winter shelter off the B-Line trail in Switchyard Park. Bobbs said he is concerned about the shelter closing next month.

“We need our voices heard. We need people to understand that we’re a group of people that need help,” Bobbs said. “Not just to let us lay low in the gutter and rot away like a tomato.”

Bobbs was put in foster care when he was two years old, adopted at four, and lived with a family until he was 19. He bounced around every six months until he was 21. He said the family that raised him instilled good morals, making him genuinely happy in life.

Bobbs said this winter has not been as bad as previous years. Enough shelters eventually opened and provided the necessary beds for unhoused community members. However, Bobbs said the first half of winter was more difficult.

On Dec. 24, 2020, Jt Vanderburgh, 51, died in Seminary Park after Bloomington police completed three welfare checks.

Body camera footage released by the Bloomington Police Department shows officers completing two of the three checks. Vanderburgh did not respond to the officer in the second video.

Rev. Forrest Gilmore, is the executive director of Beacon and said he felt called to act after Vanderburgh died in December and the city cleared out encampments from Seminary Park twice in January.

Beacon estimated 44 people still needed a place to stay and found space by the end of the month for 49 beds in an old CrossFit gym.

Gilmore said shelters serve important emergency functions, but they only offer temporary solutions. He said the housing crisis is much larger than the city council’s ordinance.

“Until we as a community take absolutely seriously the lack of accessible, affordable housing for people experiencing not just poverty, but extreme poverty, I think this is just going to happen over and over and over again,” Gilmore said.