Ray Williams has taken shelter under the President Casino Laclede’s Landing pavilion near downtown St. Louis on and off for the past three years. He likes watching sunrises and sunsets from the Mississippi River. He plays techno on his Bluetooth speakers — even if his camp mates hate it. “They’ve gotten used to it,” Williams says.
But Williams’ haven may soon be forced to an end. This Friday, city officials will try once again to evict Williams and the rest of the riverfront encampment’s occupants.
“There’s been no problems down here,” says Williams. “Now they want to come down here and do this.”
City officials posted eviction notices at the encampment under the long-shuttered riverboat casino’s landing pavilion last week. Camp residents have until noon on Friday to move themselves and all their belongings. The posting gave no reason for the eviction.
This week’s notice is just the city’s most recent attempt to evict the riverfront camp. Last April, occupants were given 10 days to vacate. City officials blamed health and safety concerns as the reason for the eviction, but after facing a torrent of bad publicity, delayed the camp’s closure to allow the city’s Department of Health and Human Services time to “enhance” the options for resettling the residents into “non-congregate shelter bed options.”
Volunteers with Lifeline Aid Group, a nonprofit that helps unhoused people, tell the RFT that residents of the riverfront encampment were told the city had 10 available beds for the 30 to 40 people at the camp.
“Where are they supposed to go,” asks Lifeline co-founder Drew Falvey. “They made the outside world their home, and each time the city takes that away from them.”
In a statement, mayoral spokesperson Nick Dunne said the city’s Department of Human Services “is offering housing and resources to unhoused residents who will accept them.”
“[Department of Human Services] continues to provide frequent outreach to the riverfront community by offering housing, transportation and additional resources including secure storage for their belongings as they transition to stable housing,” Dunne wrote.
As of Thursday afternoon, 19 residents from the riverfront encampment have accepted housing options, according to Dunne.
"The city did not move forward with the decommissioning of the riverfront encampment without first ensuring that both housing and resources were available for everyone who would accepted them," Dunne continued.
Many people who live at the riverfront encampment don’t trust shelters and say they have too many rules or barriers to entry. Others doubt whether hotel rooms are actually available.
“They don’t believe that the city wants to help them because they’ve been let down so many times,” Falvey says.
Williams says he feels safe at the riverfront community. Compared to the people “up top,” or the streets of downtown, the residents of the camp make him feel more comfortable to be himself.
And the camp feels safe. Nobody’s getting “shot or stabbed or blown up,” he says.
“You might have little skirmishes here and there, but for the most part, nobody should feel unsafe coming out here, and they don’t,” Williams says.
“It’s like a tight-knit family,” Falvey adds. It includes people like “Mama D,” who look out for the camp’s inhabitants.
Mama D has family she could live with, but she chooses to stay in the riverfront encampment anyway. She has the biggest tent in the camp and lets people stay inside if they need some semblance of shelter. She’ll also give residents, food, clothes, cosmetics and propane for heaters.
“It’s so sad,” Mama D says about the city’s planned eviction of the camp. “These people need some help. They don’t know what to do, they don’t know who to turn to.”
This story has been updated with additional comment from the mayor's office.
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