Hope Haven’s expansion proposal

Expect a full house at tonight’s DeKalb city council meeting. Hope Haven is seeking to expand their existing lodging house (emergency shelter) onto the vacant lot located directly west of the current facility. The request is to rezone the property and amend its Special Use Permit granted in 1998 to expand to accommodate an additional 30 people.

City staff is recommending denial of Hope Haven’s proposal based upon what it feels is a disproportionate burden on city taxpayers and on the City of DeKalb’s Public Safety Operations. The plan commission voted 3-2 to approve the request. John Guio cast the deciding vote in favor but since his wife  serves on the board of Hope Haven the mayor, Kris Povlsen, removed him from the plan commission. Commission members Tom Specht and Joe Gastiger also resigned.

Herb Rubin, chair of the DeKalb County Attainable Housing Coalition and chair of the DeKalb Economic Development Committee, believes the city is going to look foolish at best, callous at worst — if it rejects Hope Haven’s proposal. In a public email sent to City Manager Mark Biernacki, Mayor Povlsen, Tom Teresinski (2nd ward), Ron Naylor (5th Ward) and  to members of his housing list, Rubin points to data that indicates 74% of Hope Haven’s residents originated from DeKalb with many of those being children. Rubin thinks the City should compare how it treats fortune 500 companies to how it treats those most at risk.

City staff uses the DeKalb-Taylor Municipal Airport (DTMA) in its argument against Hope Haven’s proposal. Many believe the airport should be  regionalized so that all beneficiaries are sharing in the costs, not just city residents. That argument appears appropriate for operations financing but unless city staff is suggesting that any future expansion of the airport facilities take place in other communities it is not applicable to Hope Haven’s expansion proposal.

From the agenda:

In most instances, the City is routinely viewed as the preferred landing spot for the County’s affordable housing needs, social service programs, homeless shelters, etc. We should be proud of our accomplishments in this regard and have been honored to serve as host to this population group. However, it is, in large part, the City of DeKalb tax payers who are disproportionately paying for the costs to service these facilities; facilities which benefit those who live throughout the County, and, in some instances, persons who do not reside within the County. In these economic times, this is an important issue for us to consider.

This is the same argument we have been making about the airport (let’s regionalize it so that all beneficiaries are paying, not just city residents) and about affordable housing/apartments (we already have enough in DeKalb, let’s see this dispersed throughout the County). Staff believes these valid public policy questions should also be applied to the Hope Haven matter. Yes, there may be a need to increase the supply of shelter space. But, the Council should judge whether this supply should be met with a City of DeKalb location with service needs largely paid for by the City of DeKalb taxpayers.

Rubin’s right about this: The city does look calloused. Sunday night’s 60 Minutes showcased a segment on “the 99’ers.” It illustrated the growing homeless problem directly as a result of these economic times. People, with dependent children, who were making 6-figures a couple of years ago are now looking for emergency homeless shelter.  These economic times should not be used as an argument against meeting increased demand for services for the homeless.

Staff’s more valid argument is:

Second is the more specific matter of providing police and public services to this concentration of uses and users in our City. We are all well versed on what the oversupply of apartments is doing to our community and our ability to economically serve it. But when looking at statistics on a per unit basis, the number of police calls at Hope Haven far exceeds the number of police calls at a randomly selected set of conventional apartment areas (see enclosed statistics).

If the number of police calls at Hope Haven far exceeds those of conventional apartment areas then there is a problem for expansion plans. Lesly Wicks, executive director at Hope Haven, should (and will) address the statistics presented in the backup material.

This argument could blow up in the city staff’s face:

The Council should judge whether we should be accepting of an increase in Hope Haven service needs at a time when we are consistently saying “no” to any more apartments and the service needs they would generate.

No means no then. If a demonstrated need for apartment housing is denied one segment of the population (Hope Haven’s clients) then perhaps a more critical eye needs cast on the Shodeen proposal to convert his proposed project to “high-end” apartments.