This is an increasingly large problem. right after Sunset if you're walking your dog in the park you'll see people making beds for themselves. It doesn't help that there is a food pantry for homeless people in the park on Friday evening. The homeless fight and you can hear screaming in the Park after Dark.

Washington Park is not functioning as a pleasant oasis in the middle of our city. We hear fights and screams. Human excrement. Trash. Please find these poor people a clean safe place where they can live in sanitary conditions.

The park desperately needs a dedicated superintendant and 24/7 security detail with regulation enforcement, including regarding driving and parking in the park, littering, smoking, and drug and alcohol use. Park Playhouse should be a blast for visitors as things stand now...

Albany needs to work on their homeless situation like every other city, but I'm not sure what we're looking for to be done in the short term here. Many homeless people will tell you the conditions are so bad at the city mission they'd prefer to sleep on the streets. What this really sounds like to me is us saying "find these people a place to stay, just not in my neighborhood" and that feels wrong.

I don't disagree entirely with you, Ng, but I volunteer with the homeless population on a semi-regular basis and I much more often hear that they do not want to stay at the shelters due to the rules, including no drug and alcohol use. I agree that the shelters are not pleasant and society needs to do much better for our homeless citizens (as well as for our citizens with mental health challenges). These issues also intersect for a number of citizens resulting in multi-layered issues. People who sleep in the park have been assaulted and had what few items they possess stolen. It isn't safe for them either and as people have reported they are also fighting among themselves, and causing disturbances, and trash and hygiene issues with public urinating and defecating. The answer is not to allow the park to become an accepted area for living, sleeping, drug and alcohol use or violence. It's changing the park and this neighborhood and the loss to the city, when fewer visitors come to our park and when more and more caring property owners move out, will be economically and historically devastating. We have to find better answers on so many fronts and time is imperative.

It's not wrong to want one of the jewels of the city of Albany, a place that is supposed to be a ceneter of recreation in the city for everyone, including families, to be free from human waste, refuse, and encampments of people. Anyone who passes through the park in the morning or evening knows that it's hard to bring your children through the the park without being acosted by the homeless or exposed to bands of people fighting or arguing over turf. If people don't feel comfortable living around the park they'll just move to the burbs and the city will lose tax revenue further exacerbating the situation.

In my opinion social services has made this problem much worse, instead of helping. It is them vs the poor. The hope is for the poor to get lost to anywhere but at the place where people are being paid to supposedly help them. This has been my observation and experience from being through the system. Terrible how people are treated.

Whatever is going on in Washington Park Mall and elsewhere needs attention and needs to be improved in terms of the people and the park. As far as I can tell, no one with authority is responding. HELP!

Thank you for your submission to See Click Fix. In reference any issue that you see in the park please continue to call Police dispatch at 518-438-4000, so a car can be sent out to investigate the complaint. Throughout the summer months we increase the number of officers in the park and surrounding areas. We will continue to do so going forward. I am forwarding your complaint to Sgt. Deluca from the Neighborhood engagement Unit. If you would like to personally contact him, he can be reached at rdeluca@albany-ny.org.

2018