Environment
Winter campers at Houska Park get a month’s notice to start packing
The homeless community spending the winter at La Crosse’s Houska Park has been given a month’s notice to pack up by the middle of March.
The city posted the notice at the park on Wednesday, saying Houska needs to be cleaned and restored because of “health and safety concerns.”
The park has been used as a campground for unsheltered people for a couple of years.
Unlike last winter, when people were moved from Houska into a Rose Street hotel, the park has been occupied throughout the cold weather this season.
A March 15th deadline has been set for people to vacate Houska.
Other notices will be posted again before Houska is shut down. The city plans to clean up debris and put personal property now in the park into storage for a short time.
Rhead
February 16, 2023 at 9:10 am
Why did the city let them even set there tent up. Another case of dumb ass Mitch not doing his job. What is he going to do when they start sending border crossers here because La Crosse is a sanctuary city what a joke. Just remember we are laughing at you not with you!
Thomas Lane
February 16, 2023 at 1:23 pm
The clowns at “City” hall, have been enabling this problem for years. Don’t blame it all on the current mayor. He inherited a problem from the former loser lib that occupied the office. The solution is pretty simple. A bus ticket to where ever their obama phone’s area code is. Way cheaper than having this disaster here. Remember, don’t feed the bears, it makes them lazy and dependent…
Jen
February 17, 2023 at 11:20 am
Wow. Well I’m pretty sure that a lot of people that camp down there are residents of this area and just homeless so they have found an area to use as shelter. It’s crazy that the city wants to kick everyone out to use the area as storage when these people obviously have nowhere else to go. Camping in winter has to be tough and then being pushed out of the little shelter area that they do have is cruel. Before deciding to evict people from the area to use it to store items the city should have found an alternative area to move the PEOPLE to. People vs things… I think people are more important here. There is no room ever at the shelter so there should be a plan before action. This just amazes me how much people are not respected because of their situation in life. We are all human beings and deserve adequate shelter!!
Holy Mother
February 16, 2023 at 5:09 pm
I must admit that I am very concerned about Houska looking more like a landfill than a park or even a campground. I recognize that unsheltered situation needs to be addressed in effort to find safe and affordable housing. However, there needs to be an incentive for them to work for the assistance and not just have everything handed to them. Many of them seem to be squandering away these amazing opportunities set before them. I hate generalizing. But hopefully you get my point.