WORCESTER — City Manager Eric Batista has asked the City Council to adopt a strategic framework called “Disrupting the Cycle” for addressing homelessness in Worcester, along with a new ordinance banning unauthorized camping on public property, according to documents submitted to the council this week.
The city council will take up the camping ordinance at its meeting on Tuesday, Sept. 15.
The framework, developed by the city’s Department of Health and Human Services under Commissioner Seema Dixit, rests on three components.
- a citywide camping ordinance;
- expanded shelter capacity; and
- stronger data-sharing and coordination among the roughly nine municipal departments and outside agencies involved in homelessness response.
Batista wrote that after a decade of pursuing a Housing First model and expanding seasonal shelters, “government has ultimately failed” to solve the problem, though he credited those efforts with helping many individuals…