{"id":56367,"date":"2025-06-14T21:34:53","date_gmt":"2025-06-15T01:34:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/?p=56367"},"modified":"2025-06-14T21:35:23","modified_gmt":"2025-06-15T01:35:23","slug":"residents-and-business-owners-say-the-homeless-problem-is-growing-in-downtown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2025\/06\/14\/residents-and-business-owners-say-the-homeless-problem-is-growing-in-downtown\/","title":{"rendered":"Residents and business owners say the homeless problem is growing in downtown"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Residents and business owners agree that the chronically homeless problem has gotten worse and that they fear for their safety.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s just aggressive. It\u2019s dangerous. It\u2019s dirty,\u201d said one business owner. \u201cThe sanitary aspect of it is just awful.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

LDDA put cameras up in downtown but has failed to do anything.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t realize how aggressively bad the problem was out here,\u201d business owner said. \u201cAll of the other local restaurant owners are telling me how bad it is here, but you truly don\u2019t understand until you\u2019re up in it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Police calls in the downtown neighborhood have grown steadily.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

 \u201cWe see it every day, individuals living on the streets or in temporary hotel hosing, exhibiting behaviors that reflect deep unmet needs,\u201d the business owner said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why didn\u2019t we have the new Clean and Safe program established downtown?  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A “Clean and Safe” program is a community initiative, often found in urban areas, focused on improving the cleanliness and safety of public spaces. These programs typically involve a combination of strategies such as increased sanitation efforts, enhanced security measures, and community engagement to create a more pleasant and secure environment for residents, businesses, and visitors. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s something that other cities have done with a lot of success,\u201d the business owner said. \u201cIt really just puts an extra focus on making sure that we have the public safety support that\u2019s needed and also that we spruce things up.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Residents and business owners agree that the chronically homeless problem has gotten worse and that they fear for their safety. \u201cIt\u2019s just aggressive. It\u2019s dangerous. It\u2019s dirty,\u201d said one business… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":50300,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"12","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"enabled":true,"token":"eyJpbWciOiJodHRwczpcL1wvaTAud3AuY29tXC9sYWtlbGFuZGdhemV0dGUuaW5mb1wvbmV3c1wvd3AtY29udGVudFwvdXBsb2Fkc1wvMjAyNFwvMDlcL3doeS1pcy1ob21lbGVzc25lc3MtYS1wcm9ibGVtLndlYnA_Zml0PTEwMjQlMkM2ODMmc3NsPTEiLCJ0eHQiOiJSZXNpZGVudHMgYW5kIGJ1c2luZXNzIG93bmVycyBzYXkgdGhlIGhvbWVsZXNzIHByb2JsZW0gaXMgZ3Jvd2luZyBpbiBkb3dudG93biIsInRlbXBsYXRlIjoiaGlnaHdheSIsImJsb2dfaWQiOjE2MzA0MDY2MX0.nEap4Bp364gg4dg_0QqFWiQgNVrGiL48V2GLN0HNs_IMQ"},"version":2,"attached_media":[{"id":50300,"url":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/why-is-homelessness-a-problem.webp","type":"image\/webp"}]},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[12,14],"tags":[11701],"class_list":["post-56367","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local","category-news","tag-residents-and-business-owners-say-the-homeless-problem-is-growing-in-downtown"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56367","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=56367"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56367\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":56368,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56367\/revisions\/56368"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/50300"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=56367"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=56367"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=56367"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}