Two parents were down on their luck, living in a van with their five children. The mother was a military veteran and the father was showing signs of mental illness.
When Rusty Stuart, a 26-year veteran of the Phoenix Police Department, found them, he called his personal mechanic to get the family’s van fixed and got money to help them put their lives back on track.
Situations like that are standard for the 48-year-old Stuart, who leads the Misdemeanor Repeat Offender Program, formerly the Street Crime Reduction Program, for the city of Phoenix.
“We look at each one of them as an individual, just like they are, and we try to do to them or for them whatever needs to be done,” Stuart said. “Our model is completely different than what’s been tried anywhere else in the country as far as I know of.”
The Misdemeanor Repeat Offender Program differentiates homeless people who may be in need of social services from criminals. It is a coordinated effort between the city prosecutor’s office, the Human Services Department, the Parks and Recreation Department and the Police Department.
“When we choose to give someone social work versus going after them criminally, it’s really their choice,” Stuart said. “Each one of them is an individual with individual issues, they’re human beings just like me, you or anybody else.”
A lot of Stuart’s efforts are concentrated in Margaret T. Hance Park in Central Phoenix, located next to the Phoenix Public Library. He spends a lot of time there due to the amount of criminal activity and homelessness in the area. The Police Department has been trying to rid the park of homelessness and crime for 15 years.
“It’s about finding out the individuals among this population who hang out on the street constantly,” Stuart said. “It’s not really about the homeless. It includes the homeless because they’re on the street all the time, but it’s about street drug dealers, it’s about property crimes, it’s about identifying those repeat offenders within the community.”
Stuart, who placed at least three homeless men in the Phoenix Rescue Mission just last week, has helped many people get back on their feet over the years. He said it can be a struggle to keep himself emotionally detached from the people he helps.
One woman Stuart has repeatedly tried to help is named Teresa. He says she has been attacked in the park numerous times and has a mental illness, but very little criminal history. It took him a year and a half of talking to Teresa before she agreed to see a social worker, who helped her get stable housing and set up a disability fund. Last week, Teresa began living in the park again, and Stuart doesn’t know why.
“My goal is to solve Teresa’s problem,” Stuart said. “We’re truly here to help people and move them on.”
According to a study done by Stuart in 2006, only 2 percent of people in the park who are offered help or services through a social worker will take it. But community members like Laura Dragon, owner of {9} the Gallery, think policies like Stuart’s are a step in the right direction.
“Once you isolate those people, you can kind of tailor the direction of the assistance they need,” Dragon said. “To get someone to a mental state where they’re willing to accept the help, that’s the issue.”
Dragon was homeless for a total of 18 months in 2007 and 2008 before she found the help she needed in a transitional living center to get her back on her feet. She believes that in order to help people out of homelessness, policies need to focus on low income housing, vocational rehabilitation and better mental healthcare.
“There are just so many people out there and so few resources for them,” Dragon said.
One man who was deemed beyond help was arrested 286 times by Phoenix police, Stuart said. The man needed to go through the criminal justice system, Stuart said.
“We’re about solving problems,” Stuart said. “If you’re going to solve the problem, you must first solve the problem for the individual. If that problem is he needs to go to prison, well cool, we’ll get you help there, that’s fine.”
Stuart made clear the distinction between those who are criminals and those who are homeless.
“You can’t arrest your way out of every problem, but at the same time, the criminal justice system has a very important role to play,” Stuart said. “Not all of these people are down on their luck.”
Stuart recalled that when police first tried to clean up crime in the park, criminals tried to send a message to stay out by breaking a beer bottle and burying it under the swing set on the park playground.
The program’s model of approaching people on an individual basis with face-to-face contact seems to have worked so far, Stuart said. He said he uses the respect he earned from both the homeless and criminals to push them toward better life decisions.
“Each person has special circumstances,” Dragon said. “We all walk around the world with our own set of issues.”
Stuart and social workers both keep offices in the park so they can be on call to immediately respond to any issues. However, putting people in a shelter usually isn’t enough, Dragon said. She believes that changes are needed to keep people from becoming homeless in the first place.
“It’s a health crisis,” she said. “We’re using jail or the streets as treatment … it may just have to be from the bottom up that we address this problem, because it’s certainly not coming from the top down.”
Stuart’s personal presence in Hance Park plays a large part in the success of their program. He was reassigned to another part of the city for three months during the holiday season, and drugs and violence in the park started to return.
“The people who visit here, they always stay on the west side of the park. They won’t go over to the east side of the park because they’re afraid on what’s going on over there,” park foreman Jose Moya said. “(Stuart) makes everything a lot better.”
Moya and Stuart have been working together to improve the park’s safety for about three years. Moya keeps tabs on the homeless population and calls Stuart when he sees any criminal activity in the park.
“We all work together to accomplish this goal,” Stuart said. “He’s a human being, I’m a human being, and we all just want what’s best for these people.”
Contact the reporter at nkruege1@asu.edu
