The City of Bloomington and Town of Normal have launched a new website that aims to make it easier to help the unhoused living in the Twin Cities.
The campaign has two goals in mind.
The website BNTheSolution.com lists seven organizations that provide homeless services in the area: Home Sweet Home Ministries, the Salvation Army, Project OZ, Brightpoint, PATH Crisis Center, the Center for Prevention of Abuse and the McLean County Center for Human Services. The site offers direct links to their donation pages.
The website also lists food pantries, emergency numbers, mental health services and human trafficking resources.
Bloomington Mayor Dan Brady hopes the the website will stop panhandling in the Twin Cities.
“The one thing that we know is we want to try and discourage the idea that by just giving whatever’s in your pocket is the way to do things. We want to do the greatest good for those that are truly in need,” said Brady.
Brady said he, as well as others in the community, have felt uncomfortable when approached by people asking for money.
“Hearing from others, they say, ‘Something was just concerning; I had my small child with me and I was concerned when I was approached by the individual,’” Brady said.
Home Sweet Home Ministries is currently looking to build a complex of sleeping cabins for the unhoused. The ministry is also searching for housing for those in a tent encampment, located in Normal, who are about to be displaced.
CEO Matt Burgess said he’s heard similar concerns as Brady during his 16 years with the ministry, adding he’s been asked about how to act when approached by someone who is panhandling.
Burgess said the discomfort likely stems from seeing others suffer.
“It’s an uncomfortable interaction even if the person isn’t being overbearing or hostile or anything like that,” he said.
Burgess said giving to someone directly is a personal choice, as long as the giver fully understands the transaction.
“You should just be willing to say, ‘I have no expectations on what that person is going to do with this money.’ Even if they’re saying it’s for food, you don’t actually know that that’s what they’re going to use that money for,” Burgess continued.
Meaningful ways
Giving to a nonprofit that is working to provide services is a way to ensure the money will be spent in meaningful ways, he said.
The same sentiment was echoed by homeless services coordinator Liam Wheeler, who works for the McLean County Center for Human Services, and coordinates services in Bloomington-Normal and an 11-county area through the Central Illinois Continuum of Care.
Wheeler said well-intentioned people sometimes give in ways that don’t help.
“Just because you believe someone needs another knitted scarf or someone needs a sleeping bag, [that] doesn’t mean that’s the best resource to be giving them at that moment in time,” Wheeler said.
The BN The Solution website lists places where people can give their time to the cause. Wheeler said the list is a "good start," but added there are other community organizations worth spotlighting that provide more than just housing.
“If we include not just people who are directly affecting housing, but those who are providing those wraparound services, we might be able to bolster a full program for helping people re-enter and become permanently stable,” he said, adding public donations will help but workforce capacity is the real challenge.
“It’s rebuilding the infrastructure to administer the grants that’s more important right now than the monetary funding,” said Wheeler.
The Center for Human Services took over that effort after the nonprofit PATH stepped away from its regional role.
Wheeler said the continuum is working to build a database for nonprofits to see what grant funding is available and how they can get it.
Burgess said he’s not sure that BN The Solution will increase donations for homeless services and that it won’t stop people from giving directly to panhandlers.
But he hopes the website helps to educate those who want to learn about how the community can implement real housing solutions.
