Near Northside seeks extension of rules aimed at homeless – Chron.com

Photo: Mark Mulligan, Staff Photographer

A memorial to 11-year-old Josue Flores rests at the site where he was killed May 17, 2016, in his Near Northside neighborhood.

A memorial to 11-year-old Josue Flores rests at the site where he was killed May 17, 2016, in his Near Northside neighborhood.

Near Northside seeks extension of rules aimed at homeless

Near Northside residents want to expand the parts of their neighborhood in which rules barring sitting, lying or sleeping on sidewalks during daytime can be enforced.

Residents won City Council approval last fall to apply those "civility" rules to a western portion of their area, and now are seeking to designate a larger area east of the light rail line along Main Street under the same regime.

Those involved have acknowledged the restrictions alone cannot address civic leaders' concerns about transients undermining the area's safety or quality of life, however.

Neighbors took up a petition last summer after the May 17, 2016, murder of a local boy, Josue Flores, who was stabbed to death on his way home from school, allegedly by a man police say had been staying at a Salvation Army outpost in the area.

That 300-bed shelter, which has operated on North Main for four decades, has combined with other bunk houses and free feeding sites and the neighborhood's three-year-old light rail line, residents say, to flood their neighborhood with vagrants.

Shopkeepers say they witness open-air sex acts and drug deals on the sidewalks and have demanded action from City Hall. One way to get results, they decided last summer, was to circulate the petition required to extend the city's "civility" rules to their area.

The rules, as they would be in the new section east of Main, are effective between 7 a.m. and 11 p.m.

The civility ordinance has been in effect in the Central Business District, Midtown, Old Sixth Ward, Avondale and Greater Hyde Park since 2002, and in 2011 was extended to the east downtown area. South Post Oak was added this spring.

Here is a map comparing the current northside zone to the proposed one:

The neighborhood also has coalesced around solutions other than the civility rules.

Since Flores' death, dozens of mothers have organized a volunteer patrol that became Safe Walk Home Northside. City, county, rail and Houston ISD law enforcement started coordinating, andHouston police created a bike squad whose members spend most of their time in the area. HPD's central division officers also started meeting monthly with residents.

Local civic leaders lobbied to ensure their area was designated one of Mayor Sylvester Turner's five "Complete Communities" targeted for more investment and resources.

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Near Northside seeks extension of rules aimed at homeless - Chron.com