Hillsborough board to visit area shelters

In an effort to learn more about the homeless, the Hillsborough Town Planning Board is taking a field trip to the homeless shelters in Chapel Hill.

After a roundtable discussion with Inter-Faith Council Executive Director Chris Moran on Wednesday night, the board decided that it needs to take a personal look at the shelters before it formally proposes an amendment to explicitly allow shelters inside town limits.

“Right now there is no accommodation for homeless shelters,” board Chairman Paul Newton said of the town’s current zoning regulations. “Not because someone didn’t want it, but because no one had really thought about it.”

The board met with Moran to learn how the local shelters run and to see if he had any advice about running such facilities in general.

One of Moran’s ideas, which generated support from all of the board members, was to start homeless shelters in local congregations before building an actual facility.

“Sometimes it’s OK to start off small,” Moran said. “It gives you experience.”

Starting the shelters in churches would give the board an opportunity to learn more about Hillsborough’s homeless population, he said.

Town Planning Director Margaret Hauth said she would support such a setup.

“To me it’s unlikely that a homeless shelter in Hillsborough would become so sizable it’d be more than an accessory to a church,” she said.

The board also addressed how to make the idea of an area shelter more acceptable to the community.

“If a shelter starts out in a congregation, 90 percent of the fight is won,” board member Tom Campanella said. “It’s going to be a lot more digestible to the public.”

Moran also said that by involving the police and fire stations, any opposition to the shelters will soften.

“I encourage officers to stop by all the time,” he said of the IFC’s relationship with the Chapel Hill police. “We want the police to be seen not as enemies but as friends. A lot of our guys get along great with them.”

The board also learned about the day-to-day life of people who reside at the IFC shelters.

“Routine is everything to these folks,” Moran said. “They want to be safe. They want to do chores. They want to be productive citizens.”

Some people stay in the shelters for long periods of time and others are only there for a few days, he said, adding that the main reason IFC’s community shelter is “come and go” is because it serves both the hungry and the homeless.

“You can drive by there any time and you won’t see any loitering,” Moran said of the afternoon time period when the shelter is closed.

Hauth said she will plan a visit for the board members before their next meeting on April 5.

Hillsborough already took a step toward ending local homelessness when the Town Board joined the county’s Partnership to End Homelessness on Feb. 14.

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