The special-use permit application for the new IFC men's homeless shelter was released late yesterday. Here's a look at what the organization is proposing for its new facility.

The new Community House would be a two floor, 52-bed transitional housing facility with room for 17 cots on the first floor to serve as an overnight emergency shelter. The property total is 79,000 sq. feet built upon a 1.66 acre tract leased by the UNC to the Town of Chapel Hill.

Transitional housing will be able to accommodate up to 52 men, with resident dining for 28. The building will include offices, counseling and meeting areas and free medical/psychiatric clinic for residents.

The 52-bed transitional area breaks down like this:

-Two 10 bed dormitories with bunk beds for 20 residents

-Five quads to accommodate 20 residents

-Six doubles for 12 residents

Sustainability features include:

-geothermal heat pumps

-light roof color

-extended roof overhangs

Opponents of siting the InterFaith Council Community House men's shelter near Homestead Park have launched a new Web site detailing their concerns.

"Today, around Homestead Park, an area about 1/5th of a square mile, houses 110 halfway and transitional beds to accommodate residents who struggle with homelessness, drug/alcohol addiction and mental illness," the site states. "Asking our community to absorb another homeless shelter is simply callous to the needs of the families and students that live here as well as those who use the park."

The IFC has maintained its own Web site for months, responding to citizens' concerns. The IFC recently published two studies by criminologist Christa Polczynski Olson, who analyzed Chapel Hill police data on behalf of the agency.

One study showed that crime concentrates at the corner of Franklin and Columbia streets, within one block of the current IFC shelter, but Olson could not determine to what extent shelter residents are responsible for that crime. The other study concluded that, contrary to opponents' claims, the area around the proposed shelter has very little crime.

"Even with this location containing so many social service agencies," Olson wrote, "this location ... has a much lower density of crime than the locations with the highest density of crime in all of Chapel Hill."

IFC director Chris Moran spoke to the United Church of Chapel Hill today, the second of two talks about the homeless shelter the Inter-Faith Council for Social Service hopes to open next door in 2012.

Moran emphasized that poverty, more than mental illness or substance abuse, is behind most homelessness. Words have meaning, he said, asking people to drop terms like soup kitchen and shelter and use the terms the IFC uses: Community Kitchen and Community House.

When the shelter moves, he repeated, the kitchen will move to the agency's Douglas Building on Carrboro's Main Street. There it will become part of a new food program called FoodFirst that will promote local agriculture and higher quality nutrition for recipients.

Moran opened with lyrics from folk troubadour Woody Guthrie. He quoted Joan Osborne's 1995 hit "What If God Was One of Us."

What if God was one of us?
Just a slob like one of us
Just a stranger on the bus
Trying to make his way home

"I love Joan Osborne," Moran said. [Me too, check out 2002's covers album "How Sweet It Is"]

"I use these lyrics a lot," he continued. "We are really all God, and God is all of us." 

He quoted philosophers Seneca, Gandhi and a Jewish wise man that went by too fast for me. He even quoted '70s rock band Styxx.

Not much news, though.

The IFC has hired local architect Jim Spencer to remake the Main Street headquarters for the FoodFirst program. And he said the IFC is ready, if the county pays for it, to continue providing emergency shelter for homeless people who don't enter its transitional model when it opens.

No word on where that would be. He said the town has other uses for the current shelter, in the old muncipal building at 100 W. Rosemary St.      

Last week I wrote how a reader asked what public process led to the men's homeless shelter moving to MLK by Homestead Road. I wrote how I told her there was no public process. Mayor Foy, then Chancellor Moeser and IFC head Chris Moran just announced it one morning.

Carlo Robustelli, the mayor's aide, called after that column ran. He wanted us to know that the mayor had recently responded to some residents who had the same question. He sent me the letter, which spelled out the town's special use permit process.

The only town meeting has been at the Design Review Commission, which met June 17. The Town Council was supposed to get its early look at the project last week, but that has been delayed to Oct. 19.

When I told the caller last week there had been no public process in choosing the location, I didn't mean to imply there would be no public process from this point on. So here are some points from the mayor's letter.

Once the IFC applies for a special-use permit, neighbors within 1,000 feet will be invited to a public information meeting. The neighbors will get another letter when the permit application goes before the planning board. Between the information meeting, the meetings of various town advisory boards, the planning board and finally the Town Council, the public will have many chances to comment on the proposed men’s shelter.

In fact, this is how most development occurs. Someone buys a property or buys an option, makes a proposal and it either goes forward or goes nowhere. Some current candidates also think it goes on for too long, without any assurance that developers or the town get what they want in the end. Council incumbent Ed Harison called the SUP process a “crap shoot” at last week’s NRG forum. Challenger Gene Pease said it flat out doesn’t work and needs an overhaul.

I'll have more on this in tomorrow's Editor's Desk column in The Chapel Hill News.