On my first bike ride since recovering from COVID I discovered that a new tent city had popped up along the main bike trail in the La Crosse River Marsh. There have long been homeless people living in the marsh, but until recently their encampments were tucked back in the woods. This is no longer the case. Now there are tents and makeshift shelters not a foot off the trail, and the reason for the relocation is this summer’s unseasonably wet weather.
During June and July, it rained almost every day. The Mississippi, La Crosse, and Black Rivers were at flood stage right up until August. The trails in the marsh, even though they are on elevated berms, were underwater. The homeless enclaves, which are not on berms, were decimated by high water and their residents forced to evacuate. Initially these displaced people moved downtown. Some set up in alleys, others in city parks. Camping is not allowed in any city park, but I was told, although I don’t know this for certain, that the cops were only rousting homeless people out of parks that had playgrounds.
When the rivers receded a couple weeks ago, most of the people living in the alleys and parks returned to the marsh. There they discovered that their former campsites were still soggy. The only dry spots were the berms of the bike trails, so people pitched their tents on them. The trails became gauntlets of homelessness, and running the gauntlets felt like an assault on people who have nowhere else to go.
As far as I know, there has not been a serious confrontation between bikers and marsh residents. My own experience is that a few of the tent dwellers intentionally stand in the middle of the trail when I try to pass. Others say, “Excuse me” and step aside. Some of the people try to stare me down when I make eye contact. Others say, “Hi” or wish me a good day.
If the people in the marsh are a representative sample of La Crosse’s overall homeless population, there is an equal mix of young and old, an equal mix of men and women. Almost everyone is white, which is not surprising. Over 85% of the people living in La Crosse are white. Hmong is the largest racial minority in the city, but I haven’t seen a single Hmong person living in the marsh. Many first generation Hmong Americans residing in La Crosse came here by way of Thai refugee camps, so returning to life in a tent may be the last thing that they want to do.
IMPORTANT UPDATE: I wrote the first draft of this blog on August 26. On August 29 I rode through the marsh, and all of the trailside tents were gone. I deviated from my normal bike route and headed downtown to see whether some of the people from the marsh had gone back to the alleys. I didn’t find any tents, but I encountered two policemen in Riverside Park and a group of anti-war protesters holding signs on the corner of Main Street and Third. I asked both the cops and the protesters about the homeless in the marsh and was told that the City Council had just revised the City’s loitering ordinances to expand the camping ban to include all city property (not just the parks). The police had removed people from the marsh only the day before, and no one was sure where those people had gone. One of the protesters thought that some of them had crossed the Mississippi River into Minnesota and were living in the nearby bedroom community of La Crescent. If La Crescent inherits even a small part of La Crosse’s homeless problem, it will be just a matter of time before its city council also tightens its ordinances on homelessness.
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