homelessness
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.
An effort to tally the number of homeless people in Orange County came up with the magic number of 236. While it's certainly a good idea to measure this, the methodology sounds pretty weak to me. Law enforcement literally went around and counted people. How can they possibly have seen and talked to every one? According to the Chapel Hill News:
The Chapel Hill police found six people without any shelter and 20 in doubled-up housing. Carrboro police found 24 with no shelter, Hillsborough police 10, and UNC police 10. The count also found one homeless person sheltered at Club Nova, a psychiatric rehabilitation center, 143 at the IFC's Community House, and 42 at the IFC's HomeStart facility.
Looks like the IFC is going to be homeless again. All the Chapel Hill News says is that they're having trouble finding a new place. Shock. Fortunately, the Chapel Hill Herald actually bothered to tell us what's going on.
Apparently the Town (who owns the building) is "temporarily" kicking out the IFC to do some renovations on the building. Considering that the Downtown Commission et al have been moaning about those unsightly beggars scaring the shoppers for years now, it seems quite possible to me that somehow the IFC won't get to move back in.
IFC has already had to relocate some of their services since the Town denied their request a few years ago to expand the facility at the corner of Rosemary and Columbia Streets. For example, they moved their women's shelter to Homestead Road - miles away from the walkability, the jobs, and the community downtown.
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