Tim Witherow: Are bums allowed to ‘homestead’ wherever they like?

Can nothing be done about the vagrants homesteading wherever they like? Every day driving to work I pass an obviously homeless bum asleep on the grass strip between the road and Wendy’s parking lot on the corner of MLK Boulevard and 14th Street. Evidently this vagrant has been there so long he can be seen on Google Maps, lying on the ground covered by cardboard boxes and plastic bags next to two shopping carts and several plastic bags full of “recyclables.” This is not a pleasant sight. What must travelers think of Merced when they pull off the freeway for food and encounter the stockpile of debris and the person under the cardboard? Would this bum be allowed to make his home in the Courthouse Park or Bob Hart Square? Why is this situation tolerated?

This story was originally published June 10, 2015 at 12:42 PM with the headline "Tim Witherow: Are bums allowed to ‘homestead’ wherever they like?."