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I sat in a barely comfortable chair yesterday for three hours listening to men in suits debate whether a homeless shelter in St. Louis is a “detriment to the neighborhood.” The whole thing was rather surreal.<\/p>\n

I’m not complaining about sitting three hours doing nothing but filling that chair, because I remember last Sunday I saw a man sitting on a concrete bench in the first floor rotunda of the Old Courthouse, and he obviously had no place else to go.\u00a0 I wonder about the man\u00a0hiding inside that grey hair and\u00a0shaggy beard.\u00a0 I wonder what he was keeping in that huge duffle bag next to him.\u00a0 I wonder why he didn’t look up.<\/p>\n

The public hearing at St. Louis City Hall was held in a large room with a wall of windows behind the members of the commission, who will determine if the human beings and their behavior in and around the New Life Evangelistic Center are bad enough to close down the shelter.\u00a0\u00a0The attorney for the petitioner spent the better part of an hour asking a police officer who works in the area of the shelter questions that were intended to make the case for closing New Life.\u00a0\u00a0Ouch.<\/p>\n

“New Life” is what they kept calling the shelter, and that is the same phrase so many good-hearted people use to describe what happens in a pregnant woman’s body.\u00a0 One of the examples of “horrible behavior” in the street outside the shelter was that of a toddler running around in “just a diaper” which fell off and had in it “what children leave in diapers.”\u00a0 Easy to picture a toddler doing that.\u00a0 But is that behavior a “detriment to the neighborhood”?\u00a0 If we, as a society, have extremely strong opinions and feelings about the fetus before it becomes that toddler in “just a diaper,”\u00a0 what happened to us that we lose interest in that fetus once it is running around a homeless shelter?<\/p>\n

Another example was of a grown man urinating against an outside wall somewhere near the building.\u00a0 I thought of the somber man sitting quietly in the rotunda of the Old Courthouse.\u00a0 Where does someone go to the bathroom except in public buildings, homeless shelters or in an alley if you don’t have a bathroom of your own?\u00a0 Frankly, most of us take these niceties\u00a0for granted.\u00a0 In fact, my house has two bathrooms for just two of us.\u00a0 And a shower.\u00a0 I can’t imagine how awful it must feel to not be able to shower every so often.\u00a0One of the reasons a certain winter emergency shelter\u00a0is so popular with the freezing lumps of humanity who are lucky enough to have someone pick them up and take them there is because that one shelter has a shower.\u00a0Think about that.\u00a0Think about how you’d feel if \u00a0the most wonderful thing that happened to you yesterday was the ability to take a shower.<\/p>\n

All in all, I think the lawyer for the petitioner, which is actually the collective name for\u00a0building owners in the area who signed a petition to close\u00a0New Life, did a\u00a0very good job of demonstrating the need for the City of St. Louis to\u00a0better manage the millions of dollars of HUD money it receives every year for services for\u00a0those with no place to live.<\/p>\n

Why are people sleeping on the sidewalk\u00a0and on park benches?\u00a0\u00a0And why did the City think the solution was to build a barricade around the New Life Evangelistic Center?\u00a0A barricade?\u00a0Really?\u00a0The way to keep people from sleeping on the sidewalk is to\u00a0block the sidewalk with a barricade?<\/p>\n

A friend of mine who\u00a0does what she can to help those with no place to live told me that the benches in\u00a0bus stop\u00a0shelters now have dividers on them so no one can stretch out and sleep there.\u00a0And it is illegal to sleep in the city parks.\u00a0And in trash dumpsters.\u00a0Yes, trash dumpsters.\u00a0The police officer who testified for an hour yesterday described people hiding in dumpsters to avoid him because he would ask them to “move along.”\u00a0Move\u00a0along where?<\/p>\n

The officer seemed\u00a0like he\u00a0sincerely cared about the\u00a0men, women and children\u00a0with no place to call home.\u00a0He said he tries to get them\u00a0to go to some of the dozens of social service agencies that might be\u00a0able to help them.\u00a0He even gives them brochures.<\/p>\n

The attorney for the respondent in the case (New Life Evangelistic\u00a0Center owner\u00a0Rev. Larry Rice) did a pretty good job of cross examining the\u00a0police officer.\u00a0In fact, the attorney asked many of the same questions\u00a0I would have asked.\u00a0Are the behaviors described as\u00a0being a “detriment to the neighborhood” isolated in that one location in the neighborhood?\u00a0Drug deals?\u00a0Fighting?\u00a0Loud noise?\u00a0Turns out most of the behaviors exhibited by guests of the\u00a0homeless shelter are the same ones going on in the general population.\u00a0In fact, the officer said the major problem in that area on weekend nights, especially after a sporting event, is the\u00a0bar patrons on Washington Avenue.\u00a0Fights, loud noise,\u00a0drunk driving\u00a0were just a few he named.\u00a0I wouldn’t be surprised if there were a few illegal drugs somewhere in that crowd too and maybe even “solicitation for sex.”<\/p>\n

As the officer was being cross examined, it became apparent that the petitioner’s attorney was uncomfortable.\u00a0I don’t claim to read minds, but I’m a pretty good reader of body language.\u00a0Turning around to look at the wall clock, flopping back in his chair, putting his glasses on and taking them off\u00a0again and again, the lawyer making the case against New Life seemed to “comment”\u00a0without speaking.\u00a0 The commission chairman had ruled in favor of the\u00a0petitioner’s attorney whenever there was an objection, and I felt the chair would side with him again during cross examination, but he didn’t.\u00a0That may have added to the attorney’s frustration.\u00a0 When he tried to force an end to the cross examination by claiming it had been a “long day,”\u00a0 the attorney\u00a0representing New Life\u00a0quickly pointed out that “a long day” does not qualify as reason to object to testimony.<\/p>\n

After some back and forth about how much more testimony would be presented, the chair decided to continue the hearing on Tuesday, October 1st at 1:45 p.m.<\/p>\n

I don’t claim to know all the information needed to form an educated opinion about how to improve the situation for people who lack housing.\u00a0But I’ve read the “Five Year Update on the Ten Year Plan to End Chronic Homelessness” printed by the City of St. Louis sometime after the end of 2010.<\/p>\n

Let me say up front that I recognize that the cities and counties in the metropolitan area don’t take responsibility for their own homeless citizens, which means St. Louis is doing the work that should be done in the outlying communities.\u00a0\u00a0That said, I also know that St. Louis receives millions of dollars of tax money from the federal government which is collected primarily from taxpayers outside the City of St. Louis.\u00a0 According to the Five Year Plan report, St. Louis received $54,954,081 in HUD grants between 2005 and 2010 plus another $8.4 through the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act of 2009 (stimulus money) for Homeless Prevention.\u00a0 There are dozens of organizations in the Continuum of Care system receiving funds from these HUD grants as well as doing fundraisers of their own.\u00a0 I’ve participated in some of these fundraisers and am in awe of the people who work directly with those in need.\u00a0 But I wonder how much duplication there is as far as overhead in all these various agencies and non-profit organizations.\u00a0 I don’t know.\u00a0 But I think it’s worth asking.\u00a0 Those who work directly with homeless individuals, especially the volunteers who go out on cold winter nights to find people and take them to shelters, know firsthand what the needs are.<\/p>\n

Yesterday I met Teka Childress who started St. Louis Winter Outreach a few years ago and about whom I’ve heard a chorus of praise from those who know her. I admire those who volunteer for Winter Outreach and can’t praise them enough.\u00a0\u00a0 The Post Dispatch published an op-ed article on\u00a0June 18th \u00a0by Teka and two Winter Outreach volunteers\u00a0asking the City to reject the petition to close New Life Evangelistic Center which will simply move the problem somewhere else.\u00a0 They feel, and I agree, that closing a shelter is short-sighted and doesn’t address the overall issue of helping people who need it most. The article lists suggestions that would improve the situation for homeless citizens,\u00a0and I hope the St. Louis Board of Public Service follows that advice.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, those of us with a voice in the political system should be demanding more funding for mental health services, job training and safe, affordable housing and child care.<\/p>\n

The Democrat who recently won the nomination for Mayor of New York City wants to add a modest tax\u00a0\u00a0on incomes\u00a0over $500,000 a year to\u00a0provide\u00a0professional\u00a0child care and pre-school for families that can’t afford it. Even the majority of upper income New Yorkers agree that taxes spent on the health and safety of children is money well spent. Everyone benefits in the long run when children are raised in a nurturing environment.<\/p>\n

Our task in Missouri is to inject\u00a0new life into\u00a0the public debate over the government’s role in\u00a0making our lives better. I would love to see the day when those with more resources than they need ask how they can help, rather than petitioning the government to move\u00a0problems out of sight.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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