Everybody Needs To Calm Down
July 28, 2016 at 4:25 p.m.
By Gary [email protected]
This homeless shelter thing is getting out of hand. Seriously, everybody just needs to take a deep breath.
There have been lots of mistakes made in the handling of this thing.
First of all, the whole idea that downtown merchants need to be punished with a boycott for having an opinion is patently absurd.
That helps no one and accomplishes nothing.
Hey, maybe if a couple of those businesses have to close, we could add to the roles of the unemployed and homeless, eh?
Good plan.
So let's end all the boycott nonsense, please. It's completely counterproductive.
Let's get to the mistakes, all of which, by the way, can be rectified.
First and foremost is the city's building and plan department's handling of the situation. Those guys should have been proactive. And the city council shouldn't have punted the issue to the zoning board. The council should have allowed discussion the night Eric Lane made the presentation at the city council meeting.
With just a little more communication, this whole mess could likely have been avoided.
There wouldn't have been TV crews and stories on the Chicago Tribune website and on the Associated Press wire service.
Here's what I mean.
Eric Lane, from Fellowship Missions, has his heart in the right place. He wants a homeless shelter. He sees the need first hand. And, by the way, he told me the vast majority of homeless people he sees in our community are single moms in their 20s. They've been laid off and can't afford housing.
They sleep in cars or on the couches of their friends. They're likely not career homeless people. They're just having a run of bad luck and need help.
That kind of explodes the stereotypical myth of a homeless person being a filthy 50-something man muttering to himself hunched over in a trench coat, but I digress.
Lane, while having his heart in the right place, seems a bit naive.
He sees a building in downtown that he can afford and figures this could become the homeless shelter - which it could. Sure, the purchase price is in his price range. But I don't think he has a real solid handle on what it will cost to bring that building up to speed as a homeless shelter.
He wants to have a nice big kitchen. It's not like you can run down to Smith Appliance and buy a fridge and a stove. You need industrial type stuff.
And then there's the idea of state code. This is where I think the plan department dropped the ball. I think - from the moment they heard about Lane's plans - they should have sat down and had a conversation with him.
The building on Market Street is an old building. It's going to need a lot of work to meet state code for transitional housing. The people who live there have to have a safe environment. The place is probably going to need a sprinkler system and a host of other costly improvements.
The plan department is aware of all this. They should have had candid conversations about it with Lane.
Lane admitted to me he'd rather locate the homeless shelter in the Tri-Namic Building on South Buffalo Street. He noted its location, its size and the fact that it's on six acres and has lots of room for expansion.
The problem is cost.
Its selling price is higher than the Market Street building.
But a couple of people I've talked to told me that after all is said and done, costs between the two buildings could be about the same.
That's because the Tri-Namic building is newer and would require a lot less work and expense to get it up to state codes for transitional housing.
It's not too late to fix this.
Why not get solid, verifiable cost estimates on renovating both sites?
If the costs come out about the same, it's a win-win. Lane gets the admittedly more desirable site and it's not downtown.
Even if the cost at Tri-Namic comes out higher, perhaps the community could chip in. There could be grant money and fundraisers. Maybe the city could tap a little more of its rainy day money.
Bottom line is, everybody needs to work together on this thing. This whole us-against-them mentality is totally counterproductive.
Which brings me to another mistake that was made.
Running around collecting signatures for a remonstrance petition and handing it over to the zoning board before meeting with Lane and the WCDC was a really dopey move.
It accomplished nothing but create acrimony.
First of all, it was completely useless. There is nothing in the current local zoning laws that preclude the use of the Market Street building for transitional housing.
That means that the zoning board, no matter how many people are against it, has no legal reason to deny Lane's proposal. Get it?
Sure, the zoning board could deny it because there's a lot of local opposition, but that's not a legal reason. All Lane would have to do is appeal. He would win because there is no legal basis for the zoners to deny him.
Another reason the petition was a dopey idea was because it was supposed to show Lane the level of opposition.
But did it?
The names on the petition represent about 27 businesses.
Just sitting around the newsroom chatting among ourselves, the staff and I were able to name about 60 downtown businesses. And I know we missed some.
So really, less than half of the downtown businesses were represented. If I had to guess, I bet Lane, who fully expected opposition, was surprised there weren't more names on the petition.
Remonstrance petition?
Bad idea.[[In-content Ad]]There are no bad people in all this.
The merchants aren't heartless haters and Lane isn't pushing some misguided agenda.
So why doesn't Lane get some cost estimates and then sit down in a room with representatives from his board, the plan department, the city, the WCDC, the merchants and the zoners and figure this out?
I'll moderate if they want.
Let's get this done. Let's communicate, people. It doesn't have to be this difficult.
This homeless shelter thing is getting out of hand. Seriously, everybody just needs to take a deep breath.
There have been lots of mistakes made in the handling of this thing.
First of all, the whole idea that downtown merchants need to be punished with a boycott for having an opinion is patently absurd.
That helps no one and accomplishes nothing.
Hey, maybe if a couple of those businesses have to close, we could add to the roles of the unemployed and homeless, eh?
Good plan.
So let's end all the boycott nonsense, please. It's completely counterproductive.
Let's get to the mistakes, all of which, by the way, can be rectified.
First and foremost is the city's building and plan department's handling of the situation. Those guys should have been proactive. And the city council shouldn't have punted the issue to the zoning board. The council should have allowed discussion the night Eric Lane made the presentation at the city council meeting.
With just a little more communication, this whole mess could likely have been avoided.
There wouldn't have been TV crews and stories on the Chicago Tribune website and on the Associated Press wire service.
Here's what I mean.
Eric Lane, from Fellowship Missions, has his heart in the right place. He wants a homeless shelter. He sees the need first hand. And, by the way, he told me the vast majority of homeless people he sees in our community are single moms in their 20s. They've been laid off and can't afford housing.
They sleep in cars or on the couches of their friends. They're likely not career homeless people. They're just having a run of bad luck and need help.
That kind of explodes the stereotypical myth of a homeless person being a filthy 50-something man muttering to himself hunched over in a trench coat, but I digress.
Lane, while having his heart in the right place, seems a bit naive.
He sees a building in downtown that he can afford and figures this could become the homeless shelter - which it could. Sure, the purchase price is in his price range. But I don't think he has a real solid handle on what it will cost to bring that building up to speed as a homeless shelter.
He wants to have a nice big kitchen. It's not like you can run down to Smith Appliance and buy a fridge and a stove. You need industrial type stuff.
And then there's the idea of state code. This is where I think the plan department dropped the ball. I think - from the moment they heard about Lane's plans - they should have sat down and had a conversation with him.
The building on Market Street is an old building. It's going to need a lot of work to meet state code for transitional housing. The people who live there have to have a safe environment. The place is probably going to need a sprinkler system and a host of other costly improvements.
The plan department is aware of all this. They should have had candid conversations about it with Lane.
Lane admitted to me he'd rather locate the homeless shelter in the Tri-Namic Building on South Buffalo Street. He noted its location, its size and the fact that it's on six acres and has lots of room for expansion.
The problem is cost.
Its selling price is higher than the Market Street building.
But a couple of people I've talked to told me that after all is said and done, costs between the two buildings could be about the same.
That's because the Tri-Namic building is newer and would require a lot less work and expense to get it up to state codes for transitional housing.
It's not too late to fix this.
Why not get solid, verifiable cost estimates on renovating both sites?
If the costs come out about the same, it's a win-win. Lane gets the admittedly more desirable site and it's not downtown.
Even if the cost at Tri-Namic comes out higher, perhaps the community could chip in. There could be grant money and fundraisers. Maybe the city could tap a little more of its rainy day money.
Bottom line is, everybody needs to work together on this thing. This whole us-against-them mentality is totally counterproductive.
Which brings me to another mistake that was made.
Running around collecting signatures for a remonstrance petition and handing it over to the zoning board before meeting with Lane and the WCDC was a really dopey move.
It accomplished nothing but create acrimony.
First of all, it was completely useless. There is nothing in the current local zoning laws that preclude the use of the Market Street building for transitional housing.
That means that the zoning board, no matter how many people are against it, has no legal reason to deny Lane's proposal. Get it?
Sure, the zoning board could deny it because there's a lot of local opposition, but that's not a legal reason. All Lane would have to do is appeal. He would win because there is no legal basis for the zoners to deny him.
Another reason the petition was a dopey idea was because it was supposed to show Lane the level of opposition.
But did it?
The names on the petition represent about 27 businesses.
Just sitting around the newsroom chatting among ourselves, the staff and I were able to name about 60 downtown businesses. And I know we missed some.
So really, less than half of the downtown businesses were represented. If I had to guess, I bet Lane, who fully expected opposition, was surprised there weren't more names on the petition.
Remonstrance petition?
Bad idea.[[In-content Ad]]There are no bad people in all this.
The merchants aren't heartless haters and Lane isn't pushing some misguided agenda.
So why doesn't Lane get some cost estimates and then sit down in a room with representatives from his board, the plan department, the city, the WCDC, the merchants and the zoners and figure this out?
I'll moderate if they want.
Let's get this done. Let's communicate, people. It doesn't have to be this difficult.
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