Parents fear shelter move
October 28, 2009
Homeless shelter leaders trying to relocate are hearing again the argument they’ve heard for the last 24 years: Not in my neighborhood.
The Inter-Faith Council for Social Service would like to move its downtown Community House men’s shelter to a site at 1315 Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.
The move to Rosemary Street in 1985 was never a permanent one, and the council had the proposed site, at the intersection of Homestead Road, in mind before the University offered the land last year.
Town leaders want the shelter to leave downtown permanently, too, but residents of a dozen Homestead-area neighborhoods have banded together with concerns about what the move will mean for them.
The fate of the shelter now rests in a balancing act between the interests of the three groups.
The neighborhoods
Tina CoyneSmith, a resident of the Parkside neighborhood who is organizing opposition to the move, said the Homestead site poses public safety problems.
She said residents worry about the site’s proximity to Homestead Park, day cares and residential areas, including Chapel View and Chapel Ridge student housing.
“There is a direct connection between homelessness and crime, substance abuse and severe mental illness,” she said. “We’re not motivated by a fear of a ‘boogeyman.’
“Our claims are based on substantiated facts.”
CoyneSmith said residents are concerned that men may loiter near the shelter.
“There’s parts of that population that can’t hold down a job. They are chronically homeless,” she said. “Where are those people going to be? Those are the ones that are going be in the park.”
She also said the shelter’s move will add to an already heavy concentration of social services in northwestern Chapel Hill.
The women and children’s homeless center, HomeStart, the Department of Social Services and Freedom House Recovery Center are all nearby.
“Within 1 quarter square mile, you’ve got all of those things, and public housing additionally, which is 1 percent of the land in Chapel Hill,” she said. “It’s literally in my neighborhood.”
The Inter-Faith Council
Chris Moran, the executive director of the council, said the Homestead Road site is as close to perfect as it gets.
“The location is one that we studied and reviewed before it became a gift,” he said. “It’s terrific for a lot of reasons.”
He said the site has major advantages like being located on a major transportation corridor. Moran also said the nearby human services and churches would only benefit the shelter’s population.
“When you are vehicle-less, having services around you is a greater incentive,” Moran said.
He said Community House would provide free clinic services the women’s shelter could use.
“All of the services may be close by, but it’s going be to their benefit.”
He also said some safety hazards the neighborhoods claim, like sex offenders near vulnerable child populations, are unfounded.
“We won’t be able to accept (sex offenders) because we’re within 1,000 feet of the United Church nursery and the park,” he said. “That’s a state law.”
Moran said the problems the neighborhoods identified in the homeless are qualities found everywhere and should not be pawned off as those of the shelter’s residents.
“These problems exist in every neighborhood, in every household, in every school,” he said. “Problems that we’ve described are not unique to the homeless population.”
The town
To add to the fray, the Town Council has said it needs the shelter’s town-owned building back.
The council has not yet placed a deadline on the shelter to vacate.
“I and others appreciate the complexity of this issue,” council member Jim Ward said. “It doesn’t need a demand placed on it.”
At an Oct. 19 hearing, some council members, like Ed Harrison, said opposing parties must communicate to reach a solution.
“I propose that at some point there could be a mayor’s committee,” Harrison said. “At some point I think it could be useful.”
Both Moran and CoyneSmith said they would welcome conversation, but they are unsure if a compromise is possible.
Contact the City Editor at citydesk@unc.edu.
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Call It What It Is: Free Land
On the surface, it is perfectly reasonable to agree with the IFC’s decision to take University’s offer to lease the land at a rate of $1 per year. However, there continue to be many unanswered questions that when addressed will shed an entirely different light onto the issue. I’ve listed some, but not all of those questions below.
1. Why is UNC being so generous?
2. What is UNC getting out of this extremely philanthropic act?
3. What are the criteria Mr. Moran states the IFC used to select this area?
4. What criteria were used to select the previous sites that were ultimately rejected and where is the evidence the criteria were used before the previous sites were rejected?
5. What is to happen to the men who are turned away from using one of the 20 emergency beds?
6. How will the IFC and Town keep them from taking up residence in the woods and Homestead Park adjacent to the proposed shelter?
So many questions, so few answers, so little transparency. I personally call upon Mayor Foy, the Town Council, and Mr. Moran to take the lead in addressing these issues in an objective and transparent manner.
The good of a very few constituents should not, in good conscience, come before the good of the many. This is one of the basic premises that make living in Chapel Hill something to be proud of. Please do not brake from this premise and make a decision that appears to be so clearly based on economics rather on the needs of the entire town.
FAQs posted on IFC blog
The IFC has endeavored to answer the neighborhood opposition's questions about the proposed location for the new men's residential facility, and the FAQs have been posted on its blog at http://marchonpoverty.blogspot.com/.
I live off Homestead Road. My kids and I use Homestead Park. I'm not the least bit concerned. The IFC has been serving the homeless and those in need in our community since 1963 without incident.
At the time of the property announcement, then UNC Chancellor James Moeser said that "Carolina students, faculty and staff have long been among those volunteering with the Inter-Faith Council. Providing the IFC the land where it can realize its expansion plans exemplifies what we hold dear as partners in the future of Orange County.”
UNC is helping the IFC because it's the right thing to do.
Additional Facts From Those Who Want a Better Site
There are four critical points I mentioned to Ms. Stilwell that were left out of my comments here:
1) The IFC maintains that the connections between homelessness and crime, substance abuse, mental illness are similar to that of the general population. This is simply untrue. These are the facts published in the Orange County Ten-Year Plan to End Homelessness: 23% of the Orange County homeless suffer from severe mental illness, 37% of the Orange County homeless suffer from chronic substance abuse, and 30% of North Carolina’s homeless come from the criminal justice system. Surely Mr. Moran is not asking us to accept that 30% of Chapel Hill’s citizens have been released from criminal system and close to 40% are chronic substance abusers. The Surgeon General’s Report on Mental Health finds that 5.4% of adults in the general population have serious mental illnesses, a far cry less than 23% .
2) We continue to be concerned not about who's IN the shelter, but who's OUT of it. If sex offenders can't be sheltered, where will they be? In the park. Wouldn't it make more sense to locate the shelter somewhere where was legally allowed to serve all the populations who needed it?
Mr. Moran has stated in the news and on the record that people and activity outside the shelter are not in his realm of jurisdiction. And rightly so--his job is inside the shelter. But that leaves no one managing issues OUTSIDE the shelter, which raises safety concerns for parks users and residents of the dozens of neighborhoods surrounding the park (including student apartments).
3) The emergency beds (and floor space to be offered in inclement weather) and the medical clinic will act as a magnet that draws an additional population to MLK and Homestead (next to the park). When men are turned away, or when they leave after using emergency space, there is no plan to transport them away from the park. To think that we will not see an increase in homeless men in the park is naive.
4) The Seymour Senior Center opposed locating the shelter next to them in June 2007 for the very reasons that we users of the park oppose it. Interestingly, one of the ministers who spoke out passionately and at length (at the 10-19 town council meeting) in favor of the location next to the park opposed the shelter as part of the senior citizen group who spoke out in opposition in June 2007. I am confused. It was OK for the seniors to oppose a location next to them b/c of safety concerns, and yet one leader of that same group tells parents using the park that our safety concerns are not valid. That's a real double standard.
Only 30%?
"30% of North Carolina’s homeless come from the criminal justice system."
Only 30%? That's being VERY generous. I'd say it's much higher in Chapel Hill/Carrboro.