BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) - The current debate around the Ruth Meiers Hospitality House’s desire to turn the former Baptist Home into housing, a soup kitchen and a food pantry for the homeless is just one aspect in a much larger problem: What to do with the increasing number of homeless people in North Dakota.
More than 2,000 people were homeless in the state at this time last year, with more than half of those unsheltered, according to the North Dakota Coalition for Homeless People.
The number of homeless people has been steadily increasing since the oil boom and subsequent population influx, said Michael Carbone, the coalition’s executive director. He said that trend is expected to continue.
It is a significant rise from the numbers, in the 500s, the coalition was counting around 2008, Carbone said.
Bismarck is not immune to the problem. On Jan. 23 last year, 133 people were in emergency shelters and 70 were unsheltered on that very cold winter day. The city has reflected the state’s increase in homelessness and will likely continue to follow that trend.
Service providers across the state are struggling to keep up with the increased demand, Carbone said.
“It’s stunning to many of the service agencies in town,” he told The Bismarck Tribune (https://bit.ly/1dvGq1G).
The Bismarck City Commission recently denied Ruth Meiers’ rezoning request after a lengthy and occasionally heated hearing that highlighted issues surrounding homelessness.
The rezoning would have allowed Ruth Meiers to put a soup kitchen and food pantry in the former Baptist Home. The current zoning only allows for affordable and transitional housing.
Ruth Meiers Hospitality House has not yet decided on its next step. It has looked at purchasing an old convenience store on 14th Street and Boulevard Avenue and renovating it to provide those services instead.
The neighbors argued that having a soup kitchen would allow dangerous transients in the area, which is a residential neighborhood with children.
“Ultimately, it came down to that the neighborhood belongs to the people,” said City Commissioner Parrell Grossman, who had indicated he would vote against the rezoning.
Grossman said it’s easy for people outside that neighborhood to support the rezoning proposal when it isn’t their neighborhood that would be affected. Ruth Meiers provides important and necessary services, he said, but the neighborhood made a compelling case that changing the longstanding zoning would alter and potentially endanger the neighborhood.
He still hopes for some sort of compromise.
While Ruth Meiers could file a reworked proposal, comments by the commission indicated the neighborhood would have to be on board, Commissioner Josh Askvig said.
Askvig, who first made a motion to allow for the rezoning but later backed the motion against it after it was clear his would fail, said he would advise Ruth Meiers to do the best with what it has now as it continues to serve the community.
The tension between the Ruth Meiers Hospitality House and the neighborhood around the former Baptist Home is not unusual, Carbone said.
They call it the NIMBY syndrome - Not In My Backyard. It has happened in other communities, Carbone said, where residents are hesitant about service providers coming into their neighborhood.
“In this case, the neighborhood pushback was enough to prevail,” he said.
Carbone said the Cooper House in Fargo - a housing development for the chronically homeless - came up against similar problems.
Now, however, he said, the neighbors are some its biggest proponents.
Fargo Housing and Redevelopment Authority Deputy Director Jill Elliott said that since Cooper House opened about 31/2 years ago, the agency has had maybe two complaints, and neighbors have become very supportive as they’ve seen how effective it’s been.
In addressing community concerns before it was built, Elliott said, organizers had weekly “brown bag seminars” at the library, educating people on homelessness and the services that would be provided. Those were very successful, she said.
It also helped, she said, that the Fargo police and other city officials spoke out in favor of the idea - talking about how it would improve public safety and actually lower costs of homelessness for the community.
Sometimes, Carbone said, the necessity of the services and the good of the whole community may outweigh the resistance of the neighborhood.
Those who are homeless are not bad people, he said. Most of them are just down on their luck and trying to get by.
One compromise Carbone said he had seen work in other communities was an advisory panel made up of members of the community, business members and people who have used the services.
That would allow everyone to be heard in considering policies, and members could raise concerns about specific issues directly with the organization, he said.
It’s tough to balance all the interests, he said, and reaching out to neighbors is important.
There seems to be very little argument, however, when it comes to children who are homeless.
The increase in homelessness among students in the Bismarck Public Schools has reflected the increase within the community.
In the 2007-08 school year, the district counted 181 homeless students. Last school year, it was more than double that at 462. Already this year, the district has identified about 280 students and the school year is only half over.
For the schools’ purposes, homelessness is defined as any individual who lacks a fixed, regular, adequate nighttime residence. It includes students whose families may be couch-hopping or living temporarily with a friend, said Heather Mattheis, the students in transition coordinator for the Bismarck schools.
Generally, the couch-hopping or living-with-a-friend situations are not counted as homeless for adults in the community.
Mattheis’ job is to make sure those students have the same access to educational opportunities that other students have, like sports, after school programs and transportation to and from school.
“There’s a lot of things we do to try to make it as seamless as possible,” she said.
The community in general is very supportive of that work, she said.
Though her job is to concentrate on the kids, Mattheis said she does try to recommend resources for families in those situations.
In the Bismarck-Mandan area, that includes Ruth Meiers, which has both a men’s and family emergency shelters as well as other affordable housing options.
There’s also the Abused Adult Resource Center and Welcome House, a faith-based shelter.
Welcome House uses hotels for emergency shelters and has some transitional housing in Mandan. It also is considering leasing space from the Teen Challenge building at 1406 Second St N.W. in Mandan that was recently vacated by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, according to Welcome House board president Teva Beard.
With an increasing population, the city is going to have to figure out how to address the social issues that come with growth, like the corresponding increase in homelessness, Askvig said. But just how the city and the state do that remains to be seen.
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Information from: Bismarck Tribune, https://www.bismarcktribune.com
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