This development broke too late to get into today's N&O and Wednesday's CHN. Please go to newsobserver.com to read the full story.
The Inter-Faith Council for Social Service may be going back to the drawing board – at least to reconsider its role as a provider of emergency shelter services in Orange County.
Several Town Council members asked the IFC to consider removing a 17-cot emergency shelter component from its proposal to expand and relocate the Community House men’s transitional housing program out of downtown Monday.
“We challenge you to see if you can do that. It would be a phenomenal statement; one that I think would cause rejoicing throughout our entire community. So that is my request of the applicant,“ said Councilmember Matt Czajkowski.
"There is a lot of work that needs to be done between now and when it does come back,” Councilmember Laurin Easthom said of IFC’s proposal. Easthom agreed with Czjakowski’s request to remove the 17-cot part of the proposal. The 17-cot emergency shelter has been a major source of discord among proponents of the IFC’s proposal and neighbors of the site, who say the plan would concentrate too many social services in one area and is too close to preschools and parks.
The IFC wants to build a 52-bed transitional facility and 17-cot emergency shelter at 1315 Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard off of Homestead Road. The facility would include clinic and office space and would replace the group’s shelter on Rosemary Street downtown.
Chapel Hill needs services to support the homeless, but the council wants more collaboration with other nonprofits and neighbors
“The IFC has done such an amazing job trying to empty the sea with a teaspoon for a very long time,” said Councilmember Donna Bell. “If there is a way to put pressure on other entities to take up some of this programmatic work, this is a programmatic shift by putting an expiration date on those beds, I would be in support of that.”
Katelyn Ferral covers Orange County for The News & Observer and The Chapel Hill News.
Comments
Puzzling
Tue, 03/22/2011 - 20:52 — fhblackWho made it the IFC's job to find a shelter for the homeless? They have for years tried to do what others were not doing. Amazing that in other places there is not the assumption that a non-profit organization has that obligation. Where is the County and the towns in all of this?
Disappointed in my neighbors
Tue, 03/22/2011 - 20:17 — yyyikesTo the Chapel Hill News:
I was at the public hearing yesterday, and listened to the neighbors opposed to the new IFC facility. I listened to all their arguments, and conclude that they boil down to self-interested NIMBYism based on property-values hysteria, criminalizing homelessness, and cynical fear-mongering. I really listened for evidence of sincerity or realistic concerns, but found little to support that.
I was disappointed in the moral character displayed by the opposition to the IFC facility. That doesn't mean I am naive about the self-interested nature of the business and UNC interests at work -- but they are willing to pay up in the form of land and other resources to produce a better facility that also happens to meet their economic needs. And moving the operation out of downtown is probably a good idea for the men themselves, given the good public transit options they will have on MLK Blvd.
How many times did folks say it was bad to put a shelter so near to "preschools, a school, and a park." Why? That seems to me an ideal place to site a rehabilitation and transition program, where the goal is to find ways of integrating homeless men into mainstream life. Done right, wouldn't it be great to have kids visit the residents to help out with the garden? No one would say exactly what they were afraid of -- are you really afraid homeless men are going to attack children in the neighborhood? If that's what we teach our children, it will only add insult to the ample injuries of poverty and homelessness.
Philip Cohen