Emotions high as Grand Rapids cracks down on homeless encampments
Updated Dec 22, 2020;
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GRAND RAPIDS, MI -- For the past three months Jeremiah Rogers has lived in Heartside Park with friends so close to him that he refers to them as “family.”
The group moved to the park in October after being fed up with issues like staff favoritism, bed bugs and scabies and intoxicated people starting trouble at the area shelter they were staying at, Rogers said.
City officials say the encampment is neither safe nor sanitary. The Kent County Health Department, contacted by the city to do an assessment of the park Friday, Dec. 18, found the park is a public health threat to those living there and the community.