Efforts to find temporary shelter for people unsheltered in McLean County — including those in the encampment next to Home Sweet Home Ministries (HSHM) shelter in Bloomington — are ramping up.
Officials from Bloomington-Normal shelters, social service agencies, police, fire and municipal government met Monday to brainstorm next steps, and they’ve set a goal of finding and implementing a temporary solution before the heat of the summer hits.
Kathleen Lorenz, community investment director for United Way of McLean County and Housing Coalition co-chair, convened the group, which has around two dozen members. (Lorenz is also a Normal Town Council member, but she said she does not represent the town in this effort).
“The purpose of the meeting was to broaden some conversations that were happening between Home Sweet Home in the City of Bloomington, and to broaden it to include a subset of the Housing Coalition,” she explained.
Lorenz compared the group and its mission to the Apollo 13, where “smart people” were put in a room and told “’Don’t come out until you come up with a way to solve the challenge,’ which was to bring back that spaceship.”
“But for us, it was gathering all the right people in the room, and the challenge is, what can we do in the next 60 days to vastly improve the current tent encampment?” she explained.
The meeting was the first external meeting newly-appointed Bloomington City Manager Jeff Jurgens attended. It also coincided with his first day in the role.
He said “there’s a lot of concern” for the people at the encampment as the summer approaches.
“There’s no shade there,” he said. “This encampment’s on a parking lot. It’s very hot there. We want to make sure that we get a new solution in place.”
Jurgens added that he’s “excited to figure this out,” but at this point, “it'd be premature to get into the specifics, other than to say that this group is focused on coming up with new solutions to address the issues we're facing.”
Lorenz said she thinks the group developed three or four potential solutions coming out of Monday’s meeting, but they “need just a little bit further vetting.”
“No one idea is perfect at this point,” she added. “I did let them out before we brought this spaceship back, I guess, but we do plan to reconvene.”
The next meeting is scheduled in about two weeks, to stick with the 60-day short-term solution timeline.
Background
Conversations between the City of Bloomington, Eastview Christian Church — which owns the overflow parking lot the encampment is on — and HSHM have been going on for months. Monday was the first time city, town and county officials have convened to discuss the encampment.
Home Sweet Home took point on the encampment from the get-go, recognizing it had the staff and means to provide help. The nonprofit has been registering people tenting in the lot and supporting them, while researching ways to get them sheltered.
HSHM CEO Matt Burgess said he thinks Monday’s meeting “was an important step to coming up with actual solutions, and it had the right people involved.”
But he said there’s “a growing sense of frustration” at the shelter that “we’re not a little further along” in finding a solution.
“There's a lot more work to do to really find both the location and the model to serve our unsheltered community members effectively,” he explained. “But we’re making progress.”
Burgess has previously told WGLT that zoning regulations and size constraints for the current lot the encampment is on make it an undesirable location for permanent use, and area residents have expressed concern about the encampment’s location at Bloomington City Council meetings.
These all factor into why a new location hasn’t been found, though HSHM has been looking into alternatives, including an outdoor or indoor pallet shelter village, or using hotels.
These options offer controlled, yet individual and private spaces for people to dwell, since so many of the people encamped cannot live in congregate spaces — a large reason they remain unsheltered. Although any of the proposals would take more than 60 days to implement.
Planning ahead
That’s why Monday’s discussion was largely focused on finding a temporary fix to the encampment and the larger unsheltered community, while long-term solutions like those HSHM has been exploring are next on the group's agenda.
Burgess said he’s thinking of the 60-day timeline as a way to move things forward and “convey a sense of urgency.” He added that this will undoubtedly not be the ultimate fix.
“Sheltering people is always a temporary scenario, housing people is permanent,” he said.
Bloomington Fire Chief Cory Matheny attended Monday’s meeting. He said the 60-day solution means prioritizing a safe and secure shelter.
“Then, we work toward a longer-term solution of getting them the resources they need to both support them physically, mentally and all the items that they need to be self-sufficient,” he explained.
Members said the solution will need certain amenities, including climate control, privacy and easy access to services.
Lorenz said once the summer solution is found, the group can start looking toward a more permanent solution to implement before winter.
Normal City Manager Pam Reece said it makes sense to split the solutions up.
“Both of those aren’t mutually exclusive, but it does take a different strategy,” she explained of the short-term and long-term planning.
Consulting those encamped
Home Sweet Home and Salvation Army in Bloomington said they are speaking with clients who are unsheltered to see what their needs might be.
“Whatever Home Sweet Home Ministries does to address our unsheltered neighbors, it's going to be including what our neighbors are saying would be helpful to them, not just what we think would be expedient or efficient or effective from our arm's length perspective,” he said.
Major Dan Leisher at Salvation Army said the organization is hoping to incorporate what it’s learned from the first year of running the Midnight Cafethis winter into the long-term plan.
He said the point of the cafe was to provide a warming center for people who are unsheltered, but it was not meant to operate as a sleeping space — something Salvation Army previously offered. However, Leisher said the Midnight Cafe wasn’t as successful as staff had hoped.
“It really was a challenge,” he said, adding that the organization is asking itself “is there something we can do differently, so that we can either create the right environment or have some space that’s going to be code-worthy, where people can sleep out of the cold?”
Leisher said he is looking forward to being a part of what he hopes is a creative response to the county’s issue, alongside the others on the newly formed group.
“That's really, the only way we're going to solve anything is going to be through a collaborative effort, because not one of us, not one agency, not one government service is going to be able to solve it (alone),” he said.
