Modified Tue, Nov 17, 2009 03:48 AM
Foes of homeless shelter vent
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close xCHAPEL HILL -- A plea from Mayor Kevin Foy and Town Councilwoman Laurin Easthom wasn't enough to keep a public hearing Monday on a potential homeless shelter from getting personal.
Facing a throng of Homestead Park area neighbors against the shelter, Foy and Easthom reminded them that the only issue up for debate Monday night was whether to lift an obsolete cap on the number of residents a shelter can hold - and even that won't be up for a vote until Jan. 11. Foy said approving or denying an application from the Inter-Faith Council for Social Service for a 52-man "Community House" on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard would be a "separate matter."
But that didn't stop a doctor from calling the shelter residents "inmates" or a homeless man from saying that wealthy folks don't deserve what they have if they don't share it with those less fortunate.
"Someone needs to come in and take it from them and redistribute it," said Michael Davis, an HIV patient who has lived in Chapel Hill since 1977.
"You may not want us in downtown Chapel Hill, but we need to be somewhere so that we can access the services we need."
"The fearmongering you get with stigmatizing the homeless isn't what makes our community better," resident Will Wyland said.
Lisa Anthony,a psychiatric nurse, said she has been volunteering at the current Community House on West Rosemary Street for the past six years.
"These men are not bad people," she said. "I have never felt unsafe."
But Dr. Bhupendra Sen said having homeless men loitering around Homestead Park would compromise safety for retirees and young families nearby.
"Many of them are criminals, including rapists," he said. "There are also drug addicts and alcoholics."
Currently, town law limits a shelter to 25 residents. But both of the IFC's two shelters house more than 50 each.
The town's Planning Board and staff recommend removing the cap and letting the Town Council set a cap when it approves a special-use permit to allow a new shelter.
"That is asking for double the trouble," said resident Ken Brown. "Loitering by grown men in a public park and near preschool and after-school programs ... is not a good idea, whether you're talking about homeless men or not."
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