Home Sweet Home Ministries is collecting public input on its proposed shelter village, now called The Bridge, through two public forums.
The first was held Friday, and the second one will be at 7 p.m. Monday, May 5, at the Bloomington Public Library.
In his opening remarks Friday, Home Sweet Home Ministries CEO Matt Burgess said dozens of cities and towns across the country have successfully implemented shelter villages like this one.
“Not only do people move indoors and stay indoors, but rates of engagement in services increase, calls for emergency services decrease and neighborhood crime rates typically decline,” Burgess said.
There is reason to believe that The Bridge will have the same kind of impact on the Bloomington-Normal community, according to Burgess.
The Bridge will be staffed by Home Sweet Home Ministries 24/7, with the goal of getting residents into more stable housing.
The proposed location of The Bridge is near Main Street and Oakland Avenue south of downtown Bloomington.
“This location that we're talking about now is at least the 12th location we've explored in the last 18 months,” Burgess said. “It's already zoned to accommodate this type of use, and its proximity to Home Sweet Home’s existing campus provides cost-saving opportunities that are just not possible elsewhere.”
Before public comment began, Burgess ended his opening statement with a “hard truth.”
“This initiative is the only new idea being presented in response to our community's growing crisis of unsheltered homelessness,” Burgess said. “We're faced with the reality that when it comes to trying to do something new about homelessness in Bloomington-Normal, it's either this non-congregate shelter project in this specific location or it's nothing for the foreseeable future.”
Community input
Most of the community input at Friday's session about The Bridge was positive. Among the supporters were Illinois State University students, teachers, local nonprofit staff, a retired pastor and two local pastors.
Compass Church pastor Chris Shandrow shared a story of his church helping a woman, her boyfriend and her 4-year-old daughter get into housing.
Shandrow said this woman was sleeping behind their church, working at Denny’s and had a difficult time paying bills and finding an affordable apartment.
“In that moment, our church was ‘The Bridge’ for one family, for one little girl,” Shandrow said. “I say this because these are real people. These are real parents.”
Shandrow said when he looks at The Bridge he sees something that is imminently practical.
“We could get all of the churches and all the nonprofits in our community to take one person, one family at a time, in the same way that Compass did that one moment, and we would not be able to scratch the surface of the ability of this site, to be able to address the problem of homelessness.”
Another supporter of The Bridge was Sabrina Burkiewicz, former vice president of marketing and retail operations of Home Sweet Home.
“[I] was able to tour major cities throughout the United States that were implementing such housing infrastructure like this, and I have seen it work successfully, and there's nobody in our community who is better trained or equipped to facilitate a project successfully like this,” Burkiewicz said.
Burkiewicz added that she also supports The Bridge because tent encampments make people vulnerable.
“[Tent encampments] are going to be attracting drug dealers, pimps, human traffickers, and we have enough of that going on on the west and north sides of this community. If we can bring people into a project like The Bridge with a secure gated community that’s staffed 24 hours a day, we're going to eradicate those bad influences," she said.
Also at Friday's session, some community members who say they live near the proposed site expressed concern about its location.
“This isn’t the spot for it,” Bryan Knuth said. “We talk about families. What about my family? I have a challenged child that sits on [my front door] step on Wood Street every day, and we have people that come by and harass him. They ask him for money. Just the other night, we had them coming off the street and fighting onto my porch.”
Knuth said no one came by his neighborhood to ask what they thought about the shelter village being down the street from them.
At the end of his comment, Knuth added: “This is my feeling, and if you guys don’t believe me, come spend the night in my yard.”
Another resident concerned about the location is Deb Knuth.
“I am not against the project. I understand it's something that may be needed, but I do not think this is the best location,” Deb Knuth said.
“There is the low-income projects nearby, across the street, where those children need positive influence. There's a playground. There's a lot of kids that play in that area. I think that someone needs to research a different area,” added Deb Knuth.
Another neighbor expressed that having the shelter village nearby will not be a problem.
Community health worker Sean Boston said, “I live on MacArthur. I have people walk by and ask me for money, I say ‘no,’ and they go on. It is not a problem. It's someone in need. I think this project is beautiful.”
Boston said Home Sweet Home Ministries is across the street from the proposed shelter village and has been in that location for close to 50 years.
“Across from those projects, with the playgrounds, with the kids, right? And this clientele is going to be no different. Those kids play freely on the basketball courts and on the playgrounds every day. There's not problems. I think this is a great project.”
Questions from the community
During the question portion of Friday's forum, a community member asked if building a shelter village like this will attract more unhoused people to the Twin Cities.
Burgess said there has not been any research that demonstrates that when one community develops robust services, it draws unhoused people to that community.
“That's not to say that some people will come here to try and get a new start and have their plans fall through. But that happens to people all the time already. That's a dynamic that is occurring right now. So we really don't have any reason to believe that there's anything to support this will result in a massive influx of new people who are homeless to our community,” Burgess said.
Another community member asked if the shelter village would accommodate children or minors.
Burgess said the proposed shelter village would be designed to help people who are living outside right now, and a majority of those people are individuals or couples.
“Because of the [shelter village] design, the bathrooms are not incorporated into the sleeping units. So in the middle of the night when the little 6-year-old might need to go to the bathroom and walk across the campus, it's just not set up well for families with children.”
Another asked if there will be a “three strikes, you’re out” policy.
“There are times where we have to draw limits,” Burgess said. “What we believe that The Bridge allows us to do is to lower barriers and to address things so we can allow for a wider range of circumstances where we're not going to have to tell people that they have to leave our program, like we do in our congregate shelter program.”
Next steps
Burgess said if they can get construction started in early June then The Bridge can open in November.
However, Home Sweet Home Ministries does not own the proposed site; Connect Transit does. Representatives from Connect Transit were present at Friday's forum but declined to make a public comment.
In a later interview with WGLT, Connect Transit said they will leave the decision of what to do with the lot up to the City of Bloomington.
“If the city wants us to do that, we will certainly start those negotiations,” Connect Transit General Manager David Braun said.
The Bridge is expected to cost $2.65 million, with about half that money privately fund-raised and the rest likely coming from a grant from the county.
"We have funding lined up," Burgess said. "We have other plans for fundraising set and ready to be launched. We have the means and the know-how to do this. What's missing is the spot. Home Sweet Home Ministries does not own that property at this point in time.”
If Home Sweet Home Ministries obtains the property from Connect Transit, a city council vote will not need to be held in order to build the shelter village, according to Bloomington Mayor Dan Brady.
Bloomington City Manager Jeff Jurgens said the Connect Transit lot is zoned P-2, which is for public use, and a shelter facility like this one is allowed in that type of zone.
There would need to be annual permitting for the shelter village, and the site would need to be well maintained, Jurgens said.
“There have been no other ideas,” Burgess said. “So if this plan doesn’t come to fruition, honestly, I don’t know what will happen — other than that Home Sweet Home will remain faithful in providing the services we’ve always provided.”
