Dealing with Homeless part A: When You Are NOT in Your Store

 

Homeless people squatting laundromats is a very real concern for laundromat owners. It can lead to the ruination of your business and loss of jobs for the staff.

For those of you not familiar with laundromats and homeless issues let me briefly explain. Homeless people don’t always stay at a shelter, a job, or someplace where they can get help. Laundromats to them are a place to go inside and get warm. They try to panhandle from customers that obviously have money. They know owners of unattended laundromats don’t always come around to the store, so they figure the odds of them getting kicked out are rather small and they run roughshod on everything in the store. This includes vandalizing the store walls, breaking equipment, doing drugs and alcohol openly in front of customers, breaking bathroom fixtures, sleeping in aisles and furniture blocking machines from customers, acting violently with cleaning staff, basically being disorderly. Any homeless hanging out inside a laundromat do not make the laundromat customers feel safe. When customers don’t feel safe they stop coming and that impacts the business (i.e. revenues go down, staff gets fired, business closes).

Every laundromat owner will have to deal with the homeless at some point in their ownership.
If you haven't yet...you will.
My article is not meant to pass judgement on, criticize, demean, and comment on any homeless people or their situations, or solve in any way the issue of homelessness. 

Lets get some obvious points out of the way first:
1. Not all homeless people are crazed, drug addicts, who smell bad and pee on themselves
2. Some homeless are just people down on their luck and they are trying to change their situation. Please help them if you can
3. Homeless people that have substance, violence, or other issues are better left to professionals-don't confront them

This article deals with unattended laundromats. I give tips for attended laundromats and how to deal with the homeless when you are in the store in a separate article:
Dealing-with-homeless-when-YOU-ARE-IN-YOUR-STORE.html

If you run an unattended laundromat (attended laundromat owners there are some ideas for you too in this article) and you are not able to be in your laundromat, here are some ideas that can help contain or eliminate the homeless from ruining your business:

1. Keep lights on 24 hours. People trying to hide in your laundry look for the shadows in the corners or behind walls and equipment. Keeping the lights on eliminates those shadows, makes the person trying to hide less comfortable when they realize the lights are not going to go off, and it makes it easier for police or anyone to see inside your store. People that are trying to hide, or are up to no good, don’t want to be seen. Keeping the lights on also makes customers who need to stay longer than closing time feel welcome. They might stay until after the doors automatically lock and that makes it harder for homeless to sneak in and stay overnight or cause mischief.

2. Develop a good relationship with your police precinct community liaison officer. They can sometimes offer advice to you, and more importantly let officers know to look into your store more often for drive by patrols

3. Keep a key in a key lock box outside and let the police and fire department know they have access. Most police precincts and fire houses have a list of businesses that have a lock box and the code to get in. If there is ever a problem at your store they can access this key for entry rather than break the door or glass if they need to get inside and attend someone or kick them out. It also is a nice way to surprise someone who thinks they are safe inside your store because the doors are locked and they can’t be forced out. If police officers have a key and use it to come inside, that person will not come back and try it again

4. Usually when officers have to remove someone from an unattended business they need to contact the owner first for permission. Give written permission to your local police precinct that they have your permission to warn, kick out, ticket, or arrest any trespassers and homeless in your store when you are not there. Some police departments have a policy like this in place with standard forms that you need to fill out. Other communities do not. Check your community to see if law enforcement has any local policies like this.

5. Obtain a legal looking “No Loitering” sign that has the local statute against such behavior printed on it. Law enforcement officials are smart individuals and they understand that if they kick out a homeless person the homeless person will just come back. So they will check on the individual and sometimes just let them stay inside of they aren’t causing trouble. The officer might tell you they couldn’t do anything because there wasn’t a “no loitering or trespassing” sign posted. If you post the sign it helps the police because if the homeless person tries to say they can be in the store because there is no sign, the officer can point to the sign. Argument over.

7. A couple of enterprising owners have a church group come in and do free washes for the homeless.
The provision though is the homeless have to stay and listen to the preaching. That drives some homeless out after a time or two. When they move to coming to your store on another day, move the church group to another day too.

8. When possible have your cleaners come at different times on different days. Homeless people, and thieves, watch your store and know your routines. Break up those routines and you throw off their patterns when they think they can come to your store and camp out.

9. Make sure your security cameras work!
Watch them and get a feel for when homeless might be coming in.

10. Have a security camera or Bluetooth device that allows you to speak and be heard inside the store. Put these devices near where homeless camp out in your store. If you see someone hanging out, make “official sounding” announcements like:
“It’s 10pm. The laundromat is now closed. 
Please finish your laundry and have a good evening.”
“This is ABC security company.
Please be advised you are being monitored while in this store.”

“The laundromat is closed.
Please go to (insert name) shelter located on (blank) street.”

If the store is closed you can also have some fun with these speakers.
I’ve scared away homeless that were trying to sleep inside stores by making scary voices (“Get out”) annoying noises, and even pointing out something the person is wearing (“hey you in the bears hat”) or has possession of (“you with the backpack”) so they know THEY are the one that is REALLY being watched.

11. Have a nice poster with the different resources homeless people can take advantage of. Make sure it has the address, or better yet a map, showing where these services are located. Besides the homeless people, customers can also read this information and point out to homeless where they can get help.

12. Call the police. They are the professionals. Let them handle it if the situation is in any way potentially dangerous.

Homelessness in this country is a very serious problem. One that requires our help and understanding for the people that are in that situation. We need to have sympathy, empathy, and treat them with basic respect. 
This article is just to pass along some ideas to help deal with this situation that affects in a very real way the revenues and staff of a laundromat.

Ev
A Heck of A Nice Guy