Town council debates new location for homeless shelter

A homeless shelter faced organized opposition at a Monday public hearing from residents who would be affected by its potential relocation to a site near Homestead Road.

The Chapel Hill Town Council challenged representatives from the Inter-Faith Council for Social Service and several neighborhoods in the area to increase direct communication between the two parties to facilitate negotiations.

Community House, a men’s homeless shelter run by the Inter-Faith Council, has been actively looking for a new location since it first moved in to the municipal building at 100 W. Rosemary St.

Twenty-four years later, the shelter still hasn’t found a permanent home.

Chris Moran, the executive director of the Inter-Faith Council, presented a proposal for a new location at 1315 Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., at the intersection of Homestead Road.

The land was a University gift announced by former Chancellor James Moeser and Mayor Kevin Foy in May 2008.

But nearby residents said they fear the unintended consequences the shelter could have on their neighborhoods.

“I want to state that I do not oppose the relocation of the men’s shelter,” said Mark Joseph, a resident of the Parkside neighborhood.

“What I do oppose is the proposed location.”

Through an organized effort of about 12 different neighborhoods led by Tina CoyneSmith, residents said the site’s proximity to schools, day cares and Homestead Park poses community safety hazards.

CoyneSmith also said residents don’t want an inequitable distribution of social services in their area of Chapel Hill.

“We already have lots of public services in our backyard,” she said. “We do not want to institutionalize northwestern Chapel Hill.”

But advocates for the new locations said they are tired of years of “not in my neighborhood” sentiment.

“We did not choose the present location,” said Robert Seymour, the only living member of the original board of the Inter-Faith Council and its first president. “We literally backed in to it because we had no other place to go.

“And that is a scenario that has occurred for the last 25 years.”

Advantages of the new site include easy transit access and the nearby support of two local churches that are actively involved in the Community House, Moran said.

But council members said a decision is far from being made, and both parties would benefit from increased communication prior to the submission of a special use permit for the site.

“I would encourage the residents to understand we are a community of compassion,” said council member Ed Harrison. “It may work out that this is not the place to go.

“We have to have this place somewhere.”



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