| By Big Radio News Staff |

Frustration boiled over as the public sounded off on homelessness downtown — and a city of Janesville plan to sweep out a homeless encampment at Hedberg Public Library.

An elderly woman says she’s been scared to go to Hedberg Library since she saw a man rolling around in a drunken stupor outside the library entrance.

Another woman said vagrants hang outside the downtown Janesville store where she works all day. She says they approach her often enough that she’s anxious whenever she’s coming or going from the store. She says her fight-or-flight response kicks in as soon as she gets out of her car.

Another man says the city’s plan to move Hedberg’s homeless to a North Jackson Street lot by the police department — but force them to leave the lot by dawn every day — makes it harder to be homeless here.

He wondered where people are supposed to go all day when they’ve got limited resources.

More than one resident suggested the Hedberg homeless camp be moved to a parking lot on the south side they referred to as the “Rock County Job Center.”

The said that location would make it more likely homeless people would reach out to county social service workers for help in their situation.

One man who has been homeless a year says he’s spend some time at the Hedberg Library lot. He says it’s not safe because of vagrants who won’t leave library patrons or the homeless alone.

But he compares the city’s plan to roust homelessness out of Hedberg and then control their comings and goings at a lot by a police station to how Nazis once corralled people and marked them with cloth arm bands.

One woman said she’s probably going to close her store downtown because constant vagrancy is keeping customers away.

Another man chastised those who he says stoke fear as a cover for their heartless indifference to the plight of homeless people. He says he keeps an eye on the homeless at Hedberg, and he says he sees little of the disorder and illegal activity that police and the public have said is rampant at Hedberg and parts of downtown.

One man says he was once homeless. He says looking back at the period he was unhoused, his behavior made him act like a person who he now would avoid getting near.

The man cited a study of 50,000 homeless people. He says it estimates about two-thirds of homeless people have substance abuse problems, mental health issues, or both.

The city council did not directly respond to the public comment Monday, although council president David Marshick told them it was because the council’s policy is that it doesn’t typically address public comment at council meetings.

The council did slate public hearings for two ordinances August 26th.

One would move a homeless encampment of 20 or 30 people from the Hedberg lot to a lot across from Janesville’s police department, and would bar homeless people from sleeping at the library overnight.

The other would ban campers and RVs on any public property.