HASSO HERING

The Albany railroad bridge offers little shelter, but there was a camp there anyway on Dec. 18, 2024.

If we don’t want people setting up tents along Albany’s public paths, we’ll have to come up with another place for them to go whether we like it or not.

The city has a law against camping on public property. But having a law doesn’t help if it can’t be enforced. Enforcing it would mean arresting people and taking them to jail,  which nobody wants.

Albany’s experiment with “Marvin’s Garden” didn’t work out. The site, two city-owned lots at Jackson Street and Ninth Avenue, lacked facilities and supervision and was far too small for the number of people there.

But the idea wasn’t bad. There ought to be a place where people can set up camp if they have no other housing and can’t go to a homeless shelter for one reason or another.

At City Hall, the subject has not come up since “Marvin’s Garden” was shut down in July. But in the new year, the council and city administrators ought to take it up again.

If they do, they can remember the mistakes made at Marvin’s Garden and endeavor not to make them again. (hh)

There was a lot of gear along with the tent under the railroad bridge Wednesday.

This person set up camp under the Ellsworth Street Bridge on Wednesday. Somebody had also decorated the bridge pier.