JANESVILLE—Joe’s finally got his decrepit pop-up camper and beat-to-death 1996 GMC pickup truck off Janesville city property.

So that’s all ironed out. For now. So, too, is a year of housing arranged for him, thanks to a local nonprofit.

It’s the first time, Joe said, that he’s had a true home after almost a decade of bouncing from one parking lot to another, looking for a place to quietly blend in and be left alone.

Joe’s camper and truck are now parked legally, off the street, in the driveway of an wood-frame house. The camper no longer is an eyesore illegally cluttering up the Hedberg Public Library parking lot.

Joe didn’t break the law by sleeping overnight in the library’s parking lot. But he did repeatedly violate city rules by leaving his camper parked there during the day, when he’d drive his truck to a factory job secured through a local staffing agency.

He and at least a half-dozen other homeless people have at various times used the parking lot as a place to sleep. More have used the lot like Joe did—to store personal belongings, either in tow-behind trailers or in caches covered under blue landscaping tarps.

Police say that had led to tent camping, fights and vagrancy by people who during the COVID-19 pandemic shifted toward using the library’s lot—one of just two designated in the city for overnight parking for the homeless—as a de facto public campground.

Now, Janesville officials are considering a change to its abandoned vehicle ordinance. A recent memo signed by Police Chief David Moore indicates the change would more “efficiently” enforce a city rule that deems unlicensed vehicles left in a public parking lot or on a city street for 48 hours as “abandoned” and subject to removal.

Under the proposed rule change, the city’s police department could slap a warning sticker on a vehicle or trailer deemed “abandoned” on a street or in a public lot after just 24 hours. That would allow the city to take action faster to remove offending vehicles.

If the vehicle or trailer wasn’t moved within another 24-hour span, the city could then have it towed.

The Janesville City Council last week did not discuss the move. It was deemed procedural at last week’s council meeting—a first reading of a proposed ordinance change that would be set for hearing on an upcoming date.

Janesville Deputy Police Chief Chad Pearson said there’s no limit to the number of nights a person can sleep in their car in the library lot, but he said people are expected to move their vehicles during the day, which is the current requirement on the city’s overnight parking program.

Pearson said the rule change is aimed at people leaving vehicles and storage trailers abandoned along the street in residential areas, but he acknowledged it would extend to inoperable vehicles or storage units deemed “abandoned” by homeless people.

Pearson said other than Joe leaving his camper illegally parked at the library, police have no record of any other misbehavior by him while he lived out of the public lot.

Joe said a third-degree sexual assault conviction in 1996 still dogs him. He served prison time, but is no longer under any probation requirement and is no longer required to register as a sex offender. He says his name finally dropped off local sex-offender registries—a designation that for years was one of many barriers to him securing stable housing and employment and making normal, human connections.

He said one neighbor at his new apartment used the name placard in his apartment’s mailbox to background check him in the state’s online circuit court system. Joe said the neighbor learned of his earlier criminal record and immediately tried to make trouble for him.

Jessica Locher, who directs ECHO, Janesville’s main food pantry and nonprofit social service group that deals with homeless clients is familiar situations like Joe’s.

She said 55 families are now waiting for an apartment to open up, compared to a waiting list of 5 families back in 2019. That’s due to an an uptick in need, she said, driven mostly by an ongoing affordable housing crunch.

Joe’s rent is $850 a month, but that’s paid for by the re-housing program that aims to help him work and save money to get back on his feet. The last apartment he lived in, a decade ago, cost $400 a month.

If Joe works, he said the re-housing program requires him to funnel a third of his income into rent.

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