City councilors are grappling with the issues of homelessness and the lack of affordable housing before temperatures drop below freezing and wintertime resources become scarce. With their passage of an ordinance barring homeless encampments coupled with particularly combative public comments heard during a three-hour City Council meeting on Sept. 10, attempts are being made to take corrective action.

“What are we going to do as a legislative body to try to work on this?” asked City Councilor Cliff Ponte.

It’s a question that echoes the rhetoric of public interrogation at a time when the issue of homelessness grows more fraught. People living in tents, or in their cars, or sheltering where infrastructure allows make up a vulnerable population whose visibility and welfare is gaining traction as a full-blown crisis.

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