shelter
Come visit the downtown Men’s Shelter this Sunday and see why IFC has a tremendous need to build a new and better Community House. Our small staff, some volunteers, as well as some of our residents will show our guests the current facility, between lunch and dinner. Visitors will be amazed at how do so much with so little space! We want the community to fully understand why the IFC is striving to provide better accommodations for our homeless men, and to more fully appreciate why the move to 1315 Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd is essential for our men and for our community.
http://www.facebook.com/isupportcommunityhouse
Date:
Sunday, February 6, 2011 - 8:30am to 10:30am
Location:
100 West Rosemary Street, downtown Chapel Hill
I'm a big supporter of the IFC and its mission. And I support its desire to create a new type of facility, a transitional facility for homeless men and the need to relocate somewhere. And I'm disappointed that there is opposition to the proposed site for that new facility. But I also think that the dialogue has gone beyond civility and that the neighborhoods adjoining the proposed site are being unfairly demonized. In the 12 years I have served on Town advisory boards I have seen many neighborhoods oppose many projects for many different reasons - some good, some bad, some rational, some irrational.
I watched Monday night's public hearing on the IFC's proposed new shelter on Homestead Road with dismay. Every time the IFC identifies an affordable parcel of land appropriate for a new Homestart shelter, the neighbors object. Although the Town Council does a good job of responding to the concerns of neighborhoods, this time we have a pickle. The shelter has to move. It cannot stay downtown and achieve the type of service the town and the IFC want to provide to our homeless male population. To help promote a more positive dialogue, I'd like to propose that we stop talking about "the shelter" and begin discussing the various services currently offered by the IFC and the new proposed services.
The current shelter offers three primary services: overnight beds, job and life counseling, and meals. Those who wish to spend the night at the shelter must be clean and sober, and they have to be inside by 8:00 pm and gone by early morning. Counseling is obviously used by those who desire the service. Meals are available to men, women, and children, whether they stay in the shelter or not. Many of those who use the meal service are the underemployed.
This weekend I learned there would be a press conference today at 10 am (ie: right now) to reveal the new location of the InterFaith Council's homeless shelter. Of course, this tantalizing e-mail didn't name the location, but based on the particpants I think we have a pretty strong clue.
Chapel Hill Mayor Kevin
Foy and University of North
Carolina at Chapel Hill Chancellor James Moeser will
be joined by Chris Moran, executive
director of the Inter-Faith Council for Social Service, Rev. Richard Edens, a
United Church of Chapel Hill pastor, and other community leaders as they
announce a new partnership to benefit the community’s homeless.
So will it be at the UCC? Carolina North? Human Services Building on Homestead? It seems certain to move away from Downtown, which I think is unfortunate
I guess we will all hear shortly.
Feeling charitable this solstice? The Inter-Faith Council, which
provides critical support to some of our most vulnerable neighbors, had
to roll back their hours due to lack of funding earlier this year.
Thanks to a challenge grant, they are now poised to bring back 24-hour
service, but only if they raise another $6,000 by December 31st.
You can donate to IFC online through Network for Good.
Put "24/7 campaign" in the Designation field. If you care to mention in
the Dedication field that you came from OrangePolitics, that would be a
great way to let the IFC know how much we appreciate their work!
Your 24/7/365 gift will enable IFC to:
As printed in the Chapel Hill Herald on Saturday, April 28th:
Last week a number of neighbors of Freedom House, an addiction and mental illness treatment center in northern Chapel Hill, came out to speak against a proposed expansion of the facility.
Most of their concerns centered on safety. One neighbor, Cingai Chen, summed up the rhetoric pretty well by saying, "We are very worried about some day those patients will create a safety concern for our community."
The operative words in that statement are "some day." The reality is that Freedom House has been in our community for more than three decades and there have never been problems. It's a well-run place with tremendous success stories and has never created anything resembling a crime problem. There's no reason to believe expanding the facility would change that.
Here's a really good idea from the letters to the editor of the Chapel Hill News:
Former sorority house would be ideal shelter
As Chapel Hill struggles with the issue of homelessness, shouldn't citizens of the town seize upon an opportunity that has been laid at its feet? Hasn't anyone noticed that the Delta Zeta sorority house is up for sale? It would be the perfect answer to the question of where to put the next homeless shelter.
This structure is specifically for the housing of a large group of people. It has countless bedrooms and bathrooms for the needs of unrelated residents. It also has a commercial kitchen, dining hall, a large meeting area and office space. The building is in excellent condition, needing no substantial modifications to serve its new purpose, and it is ready for immediate occupancy. It is ideally located near jobs and transportation.
Zoning of the area is obviously not a problem since it had a similar use in the recent past, and the neighbors might actually consider the transformation from sorority house to homeless shelter a move in the right direction.
Apparently a home for people without one "just doesn't belong in a residential area." So says Lynne Kane (a 5-year resident of The Meadows, a 56-home subdivision) about the homeless shelter in the Chapel Hill Herald today. I have two questions for Lynne:
1. Where should these people live, if not in a residential area?
2. What part of town isn't a residential area?
You'll recall Lynn's neighbors in the Legion Road road area also opposed the construction of 14 affordable townhomes 5 years ago, as well as a charter school more recently.
I actually think the shelter should be located in my residential area, that is: downtown. Folks need access to jobs and transportation and this is where it's at.
Is anyone at all surprised to see that the IFC soup kitchen/shelter will not be moving back into the space that they had to leave "temporarily" so the Town could remodel it? You shouldn't be if you read OrangePolitics. I can understand them needing more and better space for their residential programs, but I can't see the free meals they provide being nearly as helpful if they are served a mile away from the center of town. Poor people don't just hang out downtown because there are students to ask for money, it's also near where they work for poverty-level wages (ie: the University).
It also comes as no surprise that downtown merchants will be glad to have the shelter permanently out of their hair. I wonder if the move will have much impact on the panhandling that some people seem to think is the biggest problem we have downtown. (Besides maybe parking, of course!) Only time will tell.
Many criminals have fed the negative stereotypes of homeless people by hanging around the shelter and by giving its address when they're arrested. However:
The Town is considering locating the homeless shelter in rural Orange County. That's a pretty strong statement about how we see poverty. More than 5 miles from the economic center of town, half a mile from the landfill, and outside the town limits.
I'm not surprised, but I'm disappointed (again) at the approach that seems to treat homelessness as an unsightly blemish on our community rather than a systemic problem for which we all bear some responsibility.
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