Great Falls Homeless Camp Garbage Dump
On Sunday I received the following message and picture from a Great Falls resident:
“Hey Rick we went to watch 50 Watt Sun (at the Beacon) last night and under the train bridge this is what we saw! Who need to clean this mess up? I hate that this is happening in the city I grew up in.”
I contacted City Manager Greg Doyon on Monday to find out what is being done about this issue and here are the email responses outlining the course of action that is being undertaken:
Email from Mr. Doyon to me:
Commissioners: The location appears to be on Burlington Northern property – I suspect it’s a displacement from the encampment of the 6th Street bridge...
Email from Mr. Doyon to BNSF:
I hope this email finds you well. Please be advised that I received [an email] from a City Commissioner. I wanted to be sure you were aware that there appears to be a homeless encampment on what appears to be BNSF property in Great Falls. The City does not perform clean-up on private property, but would assist with the removal of trespassers using appropriate law enforcement personnel. If you’d like to discuss further, please feel free to give me a call.
Email from BNSF to Mr. Doyon:
Hello, Greg! Thank you for sharing this information. I’ve notified BNSF Resource Protection. They weren’t aware of this trespass site and will look into it.
I will continue to follow up on this public safety and health/sanitation issue and report back to the public as needed.
Thank you Rick for taking the appropriate steps to get things started for this clean up. I was not aware of this problem, and my first thought looking at the picture was…. good grief that’s probably how the Portland, Oregon homeless debacle started.
I’m sure that many people (including me) were not aware about the limits the city has regarding clean up after the homeless.
Absolutely no reason for this, find them job’s or get people counseling. Get a fire truck an run them off. Thank GOD cold weather will b here soon maybe they will migrate.