GREENSBORO, N.C. — A downtown Greensboro business is looking to relocate after saying they are experiencing more and more issues with people experiencing homelessness.
Bliss & Co. sits at the heart of downtown and has been there for over 12 years.
Now, they are thinking about moving after they said they are seeing an increase in violence from people experiencing homelessness.
Bliss & Co. owner, Cara Hodges said they’ve had to start locking their front door to prevent incidents from taking place inside.
“Just recently we had a gentleman who, when the door was locked, because that is the option we’ve had to take, was throwing himself repeatedly into our glass, and just making threats towards us, and then we called the police,” Hodges explained.
Hodges said she isn't naïve enough to think these issues will be quickly resolved, but she wants the conversation started so something can be done to mitigate these instances. If not, they are looking to move.
"At this point, I’m looking for a new location until I hear anything further because my lease is up here in August. As I said, it’s not what I want to do, if there are any avenues of approach that we can take to bettering the situation, but we have to see some changes happening because just talking about it, nothing happening,” Hodges said.
WFMY News 2 talked to Greensboro City Councilmember, and Downtown Greensboro Inc. President, Zack Matheny.
He said he's glad Bliss & Co. has made them aware of their concerns.
Matheny said he brought this issue to council members and believes action needs to be taken.
"I’m glad business owners are speaking up. I’m glad concerned citizens are speaking up. We’ve got to act accordingly to make some difficult decisions which could mean ordinances review, pushing our organizations that help those in need, to do their job so that they help those in need so we don’t have these issues,” he said.
Matheny also said that the Greensboro Police Department has a Behavioral Health Response Team(BHRT).
This team of officers is trained to handle incidents involving people with mental illness and get them the care they need.
Matheny said he recommended recently, doubling that team to help respond to more mental illness situations downtown.