The week’s Carbondale City Council meeting was full of flaring tempers and flying fingers after city constituents expressed concerns about the recent sweeping of a homeless encampment and were called “LARPers” by Council Member Adam Loos, who then flipped them off as they stormed out on Tuesday, Oct. 28.

A majority of the attendees were people who had shown up in solidarity with the homeless community as a response to the East College Street encampment being bulldozed earlier this month, as ordered by the property owners of that land, and carried out in conjunction with the Carbondale Police Department. 

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Erik(ah) Buleer, a homeless person who was displaced by the encampment closure, began the discussion about the sweep during public comments. She said that bulldozing the encampment did nothing but scatter the homeless community to other areas of the city. She was told that the bulldozing was due to the amount of refuse that had accumulated on the property, but stated during her speech that “the truth of the matter is the garbage they came to clean out was us – we were the trash that those bulldozers were meant to clear.”

In her speech, she also explained to the city council that she had experienced a Carbondale police officer respond to the homeless community’s question of “where do we go?” with “not Carbondale.”

“I’m pleading, crying out to anyone with authority to do anything. Where do we go? How much taxpayer money is wasted every year in the asinine harassment and dislodging of unhoused people?” she asked the council.

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Victor Ludwig spoke after Buleer, identifying himself as a neighbor. In brief comments, he said deconstructing the encampment solved nothing.

“It claws at the soul of all involved,” Ludwig said. “No more encampment sweeps, because in the lack of a comprehensive plan, we can at least have comprehensive compassion.”

The council then proceeded with comments from the council members. 

City Council member Nathan Colombo said during the meeting that he is taking ideas, feelings and concerns into consideration to develop a proper homelessness action plan for Carbondale and that restructures the city’s inactive Human Relations Commission, which was an advisory board to the City Council on human relations issues. He asked that anyone with ideas to fast-track development reach out to him promptly.

Adam Loos followed with a request for City Manager Stan Reno to clarify the operation of bulldozing the encampment.

Reno stated that the relocation of the homeless community was an order from the private land owners on which the encampment was located. The police department was contacted to assist with bringing in equipment and accessing the land for removal of structures. The department also issued trespass warnings to individuals who did not leave and were subject to arrest.

“The city did not initiate the removal of anyone, the city provided notice so that everyone had an ample opportunity to know that the property owners were coming in there to do that work, and they decided based on the conditions of their property that that’s the response they wanted to have,” Reno said.

Loos said that he is aware that city-initiated homeless camp sweeps happen in other cities, “but not here.” He said he appreciates how much people enjoy “cosplay and LARPing,” — or Live Action Role Playing — but a city meeting is not the place for it. 

He received vocal disapproval from the crowd, with an array of boos and curses while the attendees who were present to discuss the homeless issue walked out.

Loos asked the crowd to be louder with their boos, but Mayor Carolin Harvey asked Loos not to encourage that behavior. Loos then held up his middle finger in the direction of the audience and laughed as they exited. 

Council member Dawn Roberts then talked about the time and resources that it takes to develop a partnership across the city and county lines. The Southern Illinois Coalition for the Homeless and Veteran focused organizations like Project Diehard, a mental health resource and research advocate, are developing partnerships that require a taskforce.

“Homelessness does not stop at borders, and neither should our compassion or planning,” she said.

Loos told the Daily Egyptian that his comment was not directed at the homeless people but rather directed at what Loos describes the “lifestyle left,” which he said are left-leaning people who are focused on posturing and emoting rather than achieving change.

He said as far as he knows, not a single person who was present to speak on the homelessness concerns are homeless themselves. 

“It’s an unfortunate thing that happens when people think that politics is a way to meet their emotional needs for social acceptance to achieve praise,” he said.

“If your primary goal is just to cosplay because it makes you feel good, then you behave erratically, so you might get up and storm out, shouting at the person who’s done more than anyone else to move Carbondale to the left,” Loos said of the people who departed the meeting after his comments. 

He said people who align with the “true left” are those who have done the work. 

“If you could see that there’s injustice and unfairness in the world, that you don’t like and you won’t change it, then you have an ethical duty to look around you at any given time and figure out what are the systems of oppression and cruelty that I can change and maybe win,” he said.

Loos said that it’s good to reach for something, but you have to figure out what you can change. 

When asked for a solution to how people should approach the council with issues, he said, “You should come up and talk to people, but you also shouldn’t blow up relationships that take a long time to build and that you can’t really recover from.

“So, don’t act like a spoiled child. Build relationships, both with people in office and not in office,” Loos continued. “Consider running for office. When you do that, that kind of forces you to confront the reality that not all the things you want to do are popular yet, and you can make them popular. It takes some time, and you have to be committed to it. It has to be more than emoting or cosplaying.”

Loos has since issued an apology for his actions, and said that he does not stand by his middle finger gesture, and wishes he would’ve handled it differently. 

The full recording of Tuesday’s meeting can be found here. The interaction begins around the 16-minute mark. 

Staff reporter Carmen J. Tapley can be reached at [email protected].

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