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Boathouse gnomes again [rowing]
Aug. 27th, 2020 10:09 amI've blogged about the boathouse gnomes before.
Yesterday, a bunch of us SAW one of the gnomes, in person! It was mighty strange and I only realized that what we were seeing was a Boathouse Gnome in person well after the fact.
This is actually mostly a sad story. Due to COVID, there's been an uptick in the homeless population in Albany, which in particular means a noticeable uptick in the homeless population down by the river. We can see encampments along the riverbank while we're rowing, plus there are people who sleep under the interstate in a spot right next to the boatyard, plus there are a couple people who come down to the dock and say hello. Almost feels like Berkeley, but at maybe 40% of the homeless population in Berkeley. (and - Berkeley, not SF).
Probably a large part of why we see many people is because there's a pair of porta-johns next to the boatyard, plus even though the Hudson River is often full of raw sewage from combined sewer overflows, it's a body of water and people need access to water to live.
On top of all that, apparently there was also a recent homeless encampment sweep of either Academy Park or Arbor Hill Park, and that kind of thing disrupts and displaces people and causes all kinds of problems.
In any case, when I got to the boathouse yesterday morning, first person to arrive, I noticed an abandoned blue wagon out front, filled with some "stuff." Things were also in a state of disarray inside of the boatyard. I made note but didn't do much because I was there for a meeting that was going to begin soon.
Midway through our meeting, a person shuffled inside of the boatyard and boathouse. We eventually determined that this person was most likely suffering from schizophrenia, and somehow this person had managed to get inside of the boatyard and had moved some stuff around and loaded some of our boatyard items into a baby carriage inside of the gates.
We eventually resigned ourselves to calling the police (non-emergency number), who came and helped to get the person to get their things out of the boatyard.
...maybe now people will believe me when I talk about Boathouse Gnomes?
And of course, on the other hand, clearly we need to do things differently for our facility. We really don't want trouble with the folks who are homeless down by the river, and for the most part I'm pretty sure they are just looking for somewhere that's as safe as it gets for someone who's homeless.
I'm also pretty sure that things are going to get worse in the near future. I'd like to be able to say, "Things are going to get worse before they get better," but I'm not convinced about the second part of that statement.
Yesterday, a bunch of us SAW one of the gnomes, in person! It was mighty strange and I only realized that what we were seeing was a Boathouse Gnome in person well after the fact.
This is actually mostly a sad story. Due to COVID, there's been an uptick in the homeless population in Albany, which in particular means a noticeable uptick in the homeless population down by the river. We can see encampments along the riverbank while we're rowing, plus there are people who sleep under the interstate in a spot right next to the boatyard, plus there are a couple people who come down to the dock and say hello. Almost feels like Berkeley, but at maybe 40% of the homeless population in Berkeley. (and - Berkeley, not SF).
Probably a large part of why we see many people is because there's a pair of porta-johns next to the boatyard, plus even though the Hudson River is often full of raw sewage from combined sewer overflows, it's a body of water and people need access to water to live.
On top of all that, apparently there was also a recent homeless encampment sweep of either Academy Park or Arbor Hill Park, and that kind of thing disrupts and displaces people and causes all kinds of problems.
In any case, when I got to the boathouse yesterday morning, first person to arrive, I noticed an abandoned blue wagon out front, filled with some "stuff." Things were also in a state of disarray inside of the boatyard. I made note but didn't do much because I was there for a meeting that was going to begin soon.
Midway through our meeting, a person shuffled inside of the boatyard and boathouse. We eventually determined that this person was most likely suffering from schizophrenia, and somehow this person had managed to get inside of the boatyard and had moved some stuff around and loaded some of our boatyard items into a baby carriage inside of the gates.
We eventually resigned ourselves to calling the police (non-emergency number), who came and helped to get the person to get their things out of the boatyard.
...maybe now people will believe me when I talk about Boathouse Gnomes?
And of course, on the other hand, clearly we need to do things differently for our facility. We really don't want trouble with the folks who are homeless down by the river, and for the most part I'm pretty sure they are just looking for somewhere that's as safe as it gets for someone who's homeless.
I'm also pretty sure that things are going to get worse in the near future. I'd like to be able to say, "Things are going to get worse before they get better," but I'm not convinced about the second part of that statement.
