Poughkeepsie mayor to homeless residents: Accept help or leave the city

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Poughkeepsie officials are taking a more aggressive approach to move homeless people out of city's downtown. Mayor Yvonne Flowers is leading a strategy that first involves outreach to encourage people to go to shelters and connect them with social services. If that does not work, police may intervene. Police may also issue tickets for certain offenses which would be dropped if a person opts for services instead. "She isn't doing too much," one man said of the mayor's approach. "All she's doing is moving us around, and making us look like we're the problem now." Business leaders are praising the move, while some of the city's homeless residents say they're now just drifting around the city without any help. Several homeless city residents told News 12 Monday that their encampment on Main Street was recently broken up by city police, so they moved to to nearby Pershing Park. About 15 adults had set up camp next to the basketball court Monday morning. The residents at Pershing Park said police have mainly just tried to steer them toward shelters that they do not want to go to. "We're taking a different approach," Flowers said in an interview Wednesday, adding that simply leaving Main Street will not be enough. "If they don't go into services and move to other parts of the city, we go there to attack it there as well," she said. "Let's get you into services, or you have to leave the City of Poughkeepsie." Main Street cellphone shop owner Lee Parker, who is friends with many of the homeless residents downtown, supports the city's approach to remove them from Main Street. He hopes to brings back some customers. "Sometimes, if you're hanging out, and people who aren't familiar with the neighborhood come, they might get turned off from coming in, because they don't know what's going on," Parker said. Flowers said the city is also clearing homeless people out of nearby parks. The Pershing Park residents said the police shoo them away from the park once a day, and then the residents return. "