West Ashley community meets to address crime among local homeless population

CHARLESTON, S.C. (WCBD) – On Wednesday evening, the West Ashley community met in the Bees Ferry library to discuss the issue of crime among people experiencing homelessness in the area.

Large crowds were in attendance along with local leaders to address this problem that they say has been happening in their community for years.

Local leaders like Charleston County Sheriff Kristin Graziano and Charleston City Council members invited the community to discuss recent crimes among those experiencing homelessness across the West Ashley area and specifically near Bees Ferry Road.

“There’s been some fairly aggressive homeless folks that we’ve seen around. We had some examples given tonight where people have been approached at their car, and they’ve been very aggressive. We’ve also heard examples of people coming out of the woods and being aggressive with people that are parked in some of the parking lots,” said Kevin Gerald, West Ashley resident.

News 2 has been telling you about these concerns for a while now.

Neighbors have raised concerns, including vandalism, trash and litter pilling up along the side of Bees Ferry Road, and multiple brush fires allegedly set by one man in the area.

The discussion centered on finding a solution to address homelessness and the need for a homeless shelter, which local leaders say is limited in the Charleston area.

“There’s almost no place that you can show up and get a place to sleep that night; you either have to go on a list or call this number, and you may not have a cell phone,” said Stephen Bowden, District 10 Charleston City Council member.

As conversations continued, some community members hoped to see more local leaders in attendance.

“I feel like it went very successful. Of course, we couldn’t have everybody here that everybody wanted. But I think the people that were here, the officials that were here, can work their way up to higher officials to get something done,” said Olivia Grafton, West Ashley resident.

News 2 received a statement from the mayor’s office shortly after the meeting.

“The sheriff did not notify anyone from the mayor’s office that this meeting was happening. Poor communication will not help us collaborate on solving issues in our city,” wrote a Spokesperson for the Charleston Mayor’s office.

Local leaders News 2 talked with Wednesday said the discussion was an eye-opener, and they left the meeting with action plans in mind.

“We’ll be calling our palls who are up in Columbia doing some legislating right now and seeing how we can work together. Call our friends at the county; we just all need to get out of silos and do a better job of working together,” said Councilmember Bowden.

Overall, attendees said they were glad their local leaders set the meeting up.