Two dozen people, including three police officers, filled the meeting room at the Henry Township building Wednesday.
There was concern before the meeting that it might need moved to the gymnasium to fit everyone.
Lee Walker, the president of the Henry Township Trustee Board, said it was good to see so many people at the meeting. Walker admitted he was hesitant to come to the meeting following recent online comments, which is why the board request a police presence.
The first half of the three-hour long meeting focused on homelessness in Henry Township, which includes all of New Castle.
Emergency shelter
The township center – a former YMCA building – is a designated emergency warming center. Township Trustee Travis Lyall opened the building up when frigid temperatures hit in January.
Lyall said he had no idea that dozens of people would eventually show up to get off the streets and out of the cold.
Local volunteers, businesses and churches banded together to provide daily meals for the people staying in the building.
In February, the state fire marshal’s office and the New Castle building inspector told Lyall the building was no longer zoned for people to stay in overnight. Around the same time, the township’s insurance provider also said the coverage on the building would need to change if the building was being used for housing, rather than as a community center.
In response, Lyall and his staff started closing the building up every evening. Volunteers have continued serving donated meals during business hours.
The people who had been staying there left, with some setting up tents and sleeping bags in the alleyway on the east side of the gymnasium.
‘Tent City’
People who live and work around the Henry Township building started complaining to local officials about the “tent city” that developed in the alley and on the sidewalk along Ray Pavy Way.
Members of the Elks lodge next door, located right next door to the township building, were some of the people at Wednesday’s meeting.
“Our business has been greatly affected by this,” said Mike Hacker, the lodge Exalted Ruler. “I want to applaud you guys for opening the warming shelter. But when you closed it, you guys created a big problem for the Elks. This sidewalk stuff and this walkway stuff, this isn’t going to work any longer.”
Hacker said he was glad the New Castle City Council has started the process to ban camping on city property and rights-of-way.
“We’ve been nice during this whole thing. We have not complained one bit. But, I mean, enough’s enough,” Hacker said.
Township responsibilities
“There is no immediate or quick fix to this issue,” Walker said.
He thanked Lyall and the volunteers for helping in January and continuing their work with people in need.
“It’s a unique situation. It was thrown in our lap,” Walker said. “But you have to understand something. When you’re thrown a curveball like we were just thrown, there is no quick solution. There is no magic wand you can wave and make the problem go away.”
The “problem” is not that there are people sleeping on the sidewalk. It is that there is not a sustainable way right now to help them.
One of the roles of township government is to help local residents in need of immediate relief, such as paying for a hotel room or helping with rent payments.
“Everyone realizes there is a need,” Walker said. “The problem became when it started being longer than immediate relief.”
“The township is supposed to be the last resort for you to come and seek help,” he said.
Walker said the township board is responsible for approving a budget each year and making sure the trustee is following it.
“I am 100 percent in favor of this board budgeting money to help homeless shelters,” Walker said Wednesday. “I’m not in favor of the township owning and operating (one), because you’re talking about doubling our budget for owning and operating.”
Walker cited a report that stated it would take at least $1 million per year to run a 60-person shelter.
“The only way to come up with that money would be to double to tax rate,” he said.
Board member Pat Cronk agreed.
“It’s bigger than us. It cannot just be the township,” she said.
Possible solutions
There are currently shelters in New Castle for homeless people. Each shelter has guidelines and criteria before letting people come in.
Local resident Jeff Coatie shared his experiences Wednesday night of living in a homeless situation in the past and, now, working with people who are homeless.
Coatie said some people choose not to go into shelters for many different reasons. He said the goal needs to be about getting each person to the point where they want to go.
Trustee Lyall said he did more than just provide emergency shelter over the past two months. He tried to connect people with mental health services or Adult Protective Services.
“A lot of it’s mental illness,” Lyall said. “We’re trying to find these problems with the ones that don’t want to come in... We’re trying to make them take that help, whether they want it or not.”
Multiple people in the audience asked to see short-term and long-term plans in writing. Local resident Melanie Wright said a homeless shelter cannot be set up “willy nilly,” without planning and programming in place.
“My biggest issue is I don’t see any work that’s been put in anywhere. It’s just been ‘hey, hoorah, let’s do it,’” Wright said. “But we have to start, like, foundational and build up. You can’t just, you know, kind of throw it all together.”
Lyall said he is working on developing a new non-profit organization to help local people who are homeless. The organization would be separate from the Henry Township government.
“The best deal is, the government has nothing to do with it. It’s community members,” Lyall said. “All I want to do is get this thing set up and running and get community members to run it.”
Future plans
Lyall said one of the biggest problems the Henry Township government has is the upkeep on “a city-block of a building,” referring to the former YMCA.
Township officials have previously discussed moving to a different location. Lyall announced Wednesday that the former trustee’s building on Ind. 3 recently sold. Walker said the sale price was $300,000, which can go towards a new building.
Walker and Lyall have been looking at property on S. Main Street, former doctor’s offices next to a former funeral home. Walker said the property would provide office space for the trustee and equipment storage.
The purchase could also include a nearby house, which Walker said could be used for temporary shelter. He said the state defines “temporary” as 30 days out of 60.
Walker said the plan would then be to sell the YMCA building and put that money in a non-reverting fund, if the township is legally allowed to do that. The non-reverting fund would be used specifically for maintenance of the temporary housing.