Homeowners Demand St. Louis Remove Sudanese Couple's Homeless Tent Outside Their House, Sue City

[Sugar Cookie]

All the neighbors should band together and destroy their stuff and no nothing, seen nothing or heard nothing if the cops investigate.

Two South Side homeowners are suing the city to demand the removal of a homeless couple squatting on the sidewalk and tree lawn outside their home.

Steven McClanahan and Richard Baumhoff say they are under siege: The squatters are aggressive and scream at them, and the smell of excrement emanates from their makeshift tent. They can no longer sit outside on their front porch in peace. And every time they ask the city for help, they are rebuffed.

“Whose side is the city administration on?” asked Bevis Schock, the homeowners’ lawyer. “The taxpayer, the hard worker, the citizen?”

A man in the tent declined comment on Tuesday, and no one answered the door at the house.

The lawsuit, filed Friday, marks an escalation in a long-simmering neighborhood drama. For several years, the homeless couple has moved from spot to spot in the southern reaches of Tower Grove South, neighbors said. And in the past couple of years, their setup at the corner of Spring Avenue and Chippewa Street has irritated residents and exasperated aldermen. They say they’re trying to help, but the couple has refused to accept offers to shelter elsewhere.

Nick Dunne, a spokesperson for Mayor Tishaura O. Jones, said the same thing Tuesday. The city, he said, has been working for a decade to connect the homeless couple with services and shelter.

“But they have to accept those services,” he said. “We cannot force them.”

A long term shelter that has stood for years at the corner of South Spring Avenue and Chippewa Streets in St. Louis is seen Tuesday, Feb. 20, 2024. Owners of the home it is in front of have filed a lawsuit against the city, hoping to force the shelter to be removed.

He said the last time the city tried to force the matter, under a previous administration, the couple just set up down the street. “We’re trying to do this in a way that keeps them from coming back,” Dunne said.

The lawsuit names the City of St. Louis, John Doe, and Jane Roe, as defendants.Doe and Roe are the Sudanese refugees who have continually refused city services and permanent housing.

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Homeowners demand St. Louis remove homeless tent outside their house, sue city

Steven McClanahan and Richard Baumhoff say the homeless couple outside their home screams at them, and the smell of excrement emanates from the tent.

www.stltoday.com

Why have they not been deported since they are flagrantly disobeying the law?

 

[thuumpr]

All the neighbors should band together and destroy their stuff and no nothing, seen nothing or heard nothing if the cops investigate.

Yeah... Classic @Sugar Cookie

 

[cubby]

I can understand being homeless, I cannot understand being nasty and filthy. But there's one bright spot, if you can call it that, at least they shit in the sewer and not in the people's front yards. Looking at that mound of nastiness, if they did accept housing, it would look just like that in a month. Some people you just cannot help.

 

[knockout]

What I don't understand is why tax payers vote for politicians that create anti tax paying citizen laws

 

[Metalfan]

Kerosene,check,matches ,check!

 

[McDanel]

Was an interpreter there when they were offered shelter? I also suspect a mental health issue could be a problem. And third, they may be from such a war torn hell hole that they're living the way they grew up.

I'm not giving them a pass by any means, but I had an apartment clean out from two of my tenants from somewhere in Africa. The stove was spotless, because they had been cooking on a hibachi that was standing on a Formica table in front of the kitchen window. I suspect these two might be confused by the workings of a door key, or a window.

If the city hosts a community of people from their country, I would try to engage them in interacting with them.

But the tent life has to go.

 

[Freyja]

Deportation to their home country is the answer.

 

[Blunderbuss Firozabad]

Why have they not been deported since they are flagrantly disobeying the law?

Could you tell us, specifically, which City, County or State code or law
they are flagrantly disobeying?

All the neighbors should band together and destroy their stuff and no nothing, seen nothing or heard nothing if the cops investigate.

You think residents should flagrantly disobey the law and commit a Class D Felony?

If the city hosts a community of people from their country, I would try to engage them in interacting with them.

There is.
I circled the previous address of the Sudanese community in red, the most updated I found in green and the blue dot is where the Sudanese couple is.

As of 2019 there were 144 Sudanese people on St.Louis.

I agree with all of your points. There are more suitable places they could be. It's unfair that the purposes of the sidewalk for the general use of all the public to enjoy are being usurped by two people.


This incident is still fresh in the city's memory.

Bade Jabir, 61, killed by police September 7, 2022
Unarmed, scared.

"Jabir came to a new country, a single father of four young kids.

Five years before, Jabir emigrated from his ravaged homeland to the United States. Villages were burned to the ground, and citizens were shot on sight by government troops. Jabir came to America to escape from that terror, where people in uniforms regularly pointed guns at him.

Even seemingly basic tasks in America were new to Jabir. Fernando remembers that Jabir didn't know how to sign his name. The first time he spoke through a telephone, he seemed in awe. He poured water on the ground as if it were a dirt floor, others say. He didn't know how to use appliances like a refrigerator, bathtub or washer and dryer.

Jabir was also isolated. Bilingual International Assistant Services Executive Director Jason Baker says the Sudanese community in St. Louis is "very small." Few people were familiar with his home, or spoke his first language (Gaam), or understood his trauma, or knew about his culture, or could even find Sudan on a map."

He wanted to go back home, to Sudan.

It's a worthwhile article to read.

https://www.riverfronttimes.com/news/bade-ali-jabir-fled-sudan-for-st-louis-only-to-be-killed-by-police-39436613

 

[slovakianrenner]

Get a 5 gallon bucket , fill it with Cockroaches & toss it in the tent

They would probably just catch them & eat them