Two Missouri residents are taking the City of St. Louis to court after the municipality allegedly failed to address the homeless encampment outside their home.
For over three years, Richard Baumhoff and Steven McClanahan have had people living in a “makeshift tent” outside their house.
The petition for damages and permanent injunctive relief alleges that the City of St. Louis ordered the police not to intervene while noting that the city previously demonstrated “its ability to remove persons in tents from public property.” The suit cited the city’s willingness to remove homeless people and vagrants and their tents when Vice President Kamala Harris visited St. Louis last year.
In addition to the city, the petition names the two homeless individuals camping outside the home as defendants, referring to them as “Doe” and “Roe.”
“I don’t know where they went. [Mayor Tishaura Jones] got rid of them for the big visit of the vice president of the United States. So they can move them out when they want to. They just have to want to, and that’s a big factor in the case,” the plaintiffs’ attorney, W. Bevis Schock, told Fox News Digital.
According to Baumhoff and McClanahan, the police allegedly told them that they were unable to address the issue and blamed the mayor, per Fox.
“For three years, there have been two people living in a makeshift tent in front of their house,” Schock told Fox. “They have a lovely front porch. They would like to go out … with a nice cup of coffee in the morning and … let the sun pour in on them, and that cannot happen because these scary, smelly, noisy people are there, and they don’t have the proper use of their house because of that.”
As previously reported by The Dallas Express, Dallas has its own problems when it comes to homeless encampments and vagrancy, with a DX poll showing that 75% of Dallas voters believe that homelessness, vagrancy, and panhandling are major problems in the city.
Polling also shows that Dallas residents are supportive of the homelessness response model utilized by Haven for Hope in San Antonio, which provides educational programming, job skills training, and counseling on the same campus where it maintains transitional housing. The model purportedly led to a 77% reduction in unsheltered homelessness in downtown San Antonio.
The suit against the City of St. Louis, which contains a photo of the encampment, alleges that the plaintiffs’ home “has no value in the marketplace.” The plaintiffs claim that Doe and Roe became aggressive with them at times and screamed at them.
According to the petition, the screaming could be heard even when the plaintiffs were inside their home. The petition alleges that the plaintiffs have a reasonable fear of “Doe and Roe due to their unpredictability.”
Doe and Roe’s presence also allegedly requires the plaintiffs to park their cars in the back of the house. The plaintiffs claim that they and their guests are also unable to use the house’s front entrance due to the presence of Doe and Roe.
Schock told Fox that the city government is made up of “woke left-wingers” who side with the homeless.
“They think that the homeless are doing what they’re doing because rich, white men cause their problems, and that’s how they view it… so, they have no interest in the interests of the taxpayers,” Schock said, per Fox. “I mean, my people pay property tax. They pay sales tax… They’re the backbone of America, just regular people living their life quietly, go[ing] about their business.”
