Whose job is it to protect the homeless?

Who cares about the homeless?

I mean, really.

In reporting about a local homeless man whose tent was recently taken without notice, questions started to arise:

Who truly advocates for the homeless in this community and whose role is it to protect them?

Joe Micon, executive director of Lafayette Urban Ministry, said his agency, which has an emergency shelter for the homeless, is doing its part.

"LUM will provide safe and secure shelter for 650 chronically homeless individuals during 2015 — almost 10,000 bed nights," he said. "Many other local agencies provide excellent case management service to help the homeless get off the street. They also are doing their part."

Some clients, however, will have to sleep in the streets if they have violated shelter rules, even if there are open beds in the shelter, which has 44 beds for single adults.

Although there are many social service agencies tasked with different components of getting people housed or sheltering them for a night, people continue to fall through the cracks, living in tents in the woods, sleeping in cars or crashing on couches.

I wrote about one man, but I know there are others out there. I have a friend who was homeless for a time. Her boyfriend kicked her out, and she had nowhere to go. Luckily, my friend has a strong support system of area friends who took her in.

But not everyone is as fortunate.

Micon also espoused personal responsibility.

"Each homeless individual has a role to play in gaining self-sufficiency," he said.

I agree, but there's a high level of difficulty in attaining self-sufficiency when you're homeless, especially when it's a criminalized and stigmatized offense.

If West Lafayette and Lafayette are going to share resources to aid the homeless, there needs to be better communication between the two cities and social service agencies.

And it would be nice to see more West Lafayette representatives at the local Homelessness Prevention and Intervention Network of Northwest Central Indiana meetings, which meets the third Thursday of the month at the Mental Health America of Tippecanoe County building.

Lots of assumptions were made about a Lafayette policy created to prevent displacement being implemented across the Wabash River, but no one was given the role of liaison.

Had there been, perhaps this would not have happened again.

West Lafayette officials don't seem to understand the gravity of the situation, either.

Tent removal shows disconnect in homeless policy

The homeless man broke the law. He shouldn't be sleeping in public parks. We stored his stuff, even though it was accidentally broken.

It's easy to hide behind city code instead of addressing policies surrounding homelessness. Displacement is not a solution, especially when many homeless people will end up back in the woods anyway.

I realize dealing with homelessness is a complex issue, and I don't pretend to have all the answers.

But I do believe that more needs to be done to help those who are falling by the wayside or in this case, sleeping by the river.

The Journal & Courier is ready to make that conversation happen. If you have ideas on how to address homelessness in our community, please contact me.

Flores is the diversity and social justice reporter for the Journal & Courier. Email her at tflores@jconline.com or follow her on Twitter at @TayaMFLores.