A town hall meeting about homelessness in Binghamton was held on Wednesday night. It was organized in response to the beating death of Peter Bennedum.
Bennedum died last week. He was homeless and living on the streets when he was attacked and left unconscious on the sidewalk in Binghamton the night of April 27. He was later taken to a local hospital where he remained on life support until his death about a week later.
Five teenagers have been charged with his murder.
Residents and elected officials responded with an outpouring of grief, anger, and community support over his assault.
On Wednesday night, over 130 people gathered for a town hall discussion organized by the Binghamton City Council. All except one member of the council attended.
In breakout groups, people shared their experiences with being homeless or without permanent housing and the difficulties of finding housing when working low-wage jobs. People also proposed solutions and made commitments to become more engaged with local government to push for solutions.
Some participants said the solution was for more money to be spent to build affordable housing. Others said money is available, but there is a lack of political will to devote it to housing the homeless.
“They’ll give the money to projects like building more housing for students, or, or battered women, certain things that have [a] more positive outlook or connotation,” said Charles Stanin, who spoke in one of the small groups.
Stanin compared the treatment of homeless people in Binghamton to the Dalit people (formerly called “Untouchables”) in India.
“When they ride down the street they avoid them at all costs and if they’re feeling generous that day they may give them a couple of dollars out the window and think they did something,” he said, “That’s the stigma the title ‘homeless’ has on people. But you don’t look past the title, and see the individual, you only see the title.”
Stanin said that mindset is a real barrier to implementing solutions that help people out of homelessness.
The town hall event began with a presentation of a dozen studies conducted over the past 10 years about homelessness in the city.
The overall conclusion: homelessness has increased while available affordable housing has decreased.
Councilperson Rebecca Rathmell said there will be more actions to address homelessness in the future.
