NATCHEZ, Miss. – Adam County supervisors are reviewing the legality of allowing homeless people to use the showers adjacent to the county storm shelter.
Tom McGehee, who represents a group trying to help the homeless, asked supervisors’ permission for this Monday. He also noted his group has plans to further help those without homes find places to stay.
A state law enacted in July has forced local officials to crack down on homeless people encamped in public spaces.
McGehee, a retired Natchez police officer, said his homeless aid group is trying to detail the number of people who need shelter, evaluate their circumstances and find places to house them. This, he said, could be aided by periodically giving them organized access to the showers recently erected outside the county Safe Room building. The Liberty Road facility was constructed primarily to provide temporary refuge for people during weather-related emergencies.
Vagrants have routinely gathered on the premises outside and must be chased off by sheriff’s deputies, said Adams County Emergency Management Director Brad Bradford, who pondered in August whether the property should be fenced off.
The state homeless law, which went into effect in July, specifically prohibits encampments on public properties not intended to be campsites. People convicted of violating this law can be fined and jailed for up to six months.
To enforce the new law, local officials has begun posting signs in known homeless encampments telling people to vacate the premises and remove their belongings and litter or face legal action.
Adams County board President Kevin Wilson on Monday asked county attorney Scott Slover to review the legal ramifications and liabilities of allowing homeless people to shower at the county bathing facility. Adams County supervisors in the past have briefly opened the community Safe Room to people without homes during frigid weather.
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