7/2/2022
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The Center Square
CT Insider CONNECTICUT
Super 8 shelter at center of Danbury’s homelessness debate could become affordable housing
Deseret News
Opinion: Where are the leaders who will help Salt Lake City’s homeless?
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The Center Square
FILE - In this April 30, 2020, file photo, the Space Needle and the Seattle skyline are shown against a blue sky as seen from Kerry Park. Amazon has announced $2 billion in loans and grants to secure affordable housing in three U.S. cities, including a Seattle suburb where the online retail giant employs at least 5,000 workers. Amazon said it would give $185.5 million to the King County Housing Authority to help buy affordable apartments in the region and keep the rents low, The Seattle Times reported Wednesday, Jan. 6, 2020. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren, File)
Ted S. Warren/ AP Photos
(The Center Square) – Initiative 135, a proposal that would create a "social housing developer," might have received enough signatures to appear on the November ballot.
Organizers of Initiative 135 told KING 5 TV News that they had collected a sufficient number of signatures to hold a position on the ballot.
Yet the initiative still has a number of hurdles to overcome before the proposal can be printed on those ballots.
It must first be verified that the proposal has the received required 26,520 valid signatures. The Seattle City Council would then have to pass a resolution to put it before the voters by Aug. 2, according to King County Elections.
The corporation overseeing the project if the proposal is given to and passed by voters would be called the “Seattle Social Housing Developer.”
Its goal would be “to develop, own and maintain social housing developments, as well as lease units of said developments,” according to the House Our Neighbors website.
The Seattle Social Housing Developer would not be federally financed and rent to tenants on properties that it oversees would be permanently restricted to no more than 30% of a tenant’s income.
Not everyone is convinced this would work. The Housing Development Consortium, for one, has raised some concerns.
“We are concerned that Initiative 135, filed by the House Our Neighbors coalition, distracts funds and energy away from what our community should be focusing on scaling up affordable housing for low-income people,” the affordable housing advocacy group said in an April statement. “We do not need another government entity to build housing when there are already insufficient resources to fund existing entities.”
Also, the Seattle Social Housing Developer cannot receive any private donations, as well as funds from city, state and federal branches until it is formally established.
“We are setting up the structure and the vision to get this public developer started, then we will begin raising money,” House Our Neighbors said. “We are pursuing several options, but money that is available today will not necessarily be the extent of what’s available tomorrow.”
HDC also pointed out that backers of Initiative 135 have failed to identify a viable funding source.
The Seattle Social Housing Developer “would not have the authority to impose taxes on its own, so the funds necessary to set up the additional citywide PDA would likely draw from existing affordable housing funding that could otherwise be dedicated to creating homes for our lowest-income neighbors,” the HDC warned.
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CT Insider
CONNECTICUT
Super 8 shelter at center of Danbury’s homelessness debate could become affordable housing
DANBURY — The former Super 8 motel at the center of the city’s complicated and emotionally charged debate over housing homeless individuals could be converted into affordable housing for two-thirds of those who don’t have a place to call their own.
The idea to convert the 86-room motel on the west side into a 66-unit affordable housing complex represents substantial progress compared to seven months ago, when the Zoning Commission denied a request by a Stamford-based nonprofit to run the motel as an emergency shelter after a public outcry, and the nonprofit sued the commission.
At the same time, the idea to convert the former Super 8 into affordable housing for those who have received social service support and are ready for permanent housing also has so many checks and balances to clear before it becomes a reality that both sides were careful to temper their optimism.
“We are working with the city on a framework that I think will give us a real opportunity to make a big dent in the homeless population in Danbury,” said Rafael Pagan, executive director of the Stamford-based nonprofit Pacific House, which bought the Super 8 Motel in 2021 with state funds to run it as an emergency shelter. “It could bring an end to chronic homelessness.”
Pagan is referring to out-of-court talks between attorneys from Pacific House and Danbury about converting the Super 8 into affordable housing for 66 unhoused individuals, and establishing at least one emergency shelter elsewhere in the city that Pacific House would run for 24 remaining homeless people.
While the idea represents progress from just two months ago, when the two sides were not on the same page, it remains so low on the totem pole of approvals that the leader of a 19-member city task force was hesitant on Friday to tout its merits until it receives backing from City Hall, the state, and the city’s land use commissions. Ultimately, Danbury will have to hold public hearings to get community reaction from residents in the Lake Avenue Extension neighborhood.
“We hope the plan we put forward will have homeless people coming into the system, getting the right (social service supports), and getting into apartments,” said Robert Botelho, chairman of the task force and president of Victorian Associates, a multi-family housing provider.
Botelho stressed on Friday that any deal the task force approved and referred to City Hall would make the former Super 8 motel on Lake Avenue Extension a place for unhoused individuals who qualify for permanent housing — as opposed to those who are ready for transitional housing or emergency shelter.
“We learned what the community wanted, and Lake Avenue is not going to be the receiving area going forward,” Botelho said. “Lake Avenue is not going to be the intake.”
The news from both sides that Danbury and Pacific House are near an agreement in principle that they believe will be amenable to City Hall, the state, and the community comes seven months after Danbury’s Zoning Commission heard 19 hours of testimony about locating the city’s only homeless shelter near Interstate 84’s Exit 4, and rejected it.
The Zoning Commission ruled, in part, “[T]the benefit of the addition of units gained as part of a ‘transitional shelter for the homeless’ is outweighed by the intensity of the use permitted by the petition and its adverse effects in the surrounding commercial and residential neighborhoods.”
Neighbors called it a “ludicrous” plan that put “the needs of strangers from out of town ahead of the needs of the residents around there.”
The rejected plan, which represented a year-and-a-half of work between Danbury, Pacific House and the state Department of Housing, was the only plan Danbury had for housing the homeless after the state’s concerns about coronavirus spread prompted Hartford to order that homeless people be taken out of crowded shelters and housed in single rooms.
Pacific House for its part had already spent $4.6 million in state money to buy the hotel for that purpose, for example.
As a result of the denial, Pacific House sued Danbury’s Zoning Commission in December in state Superior Court, calling the decision, “invalid,” “an abuse of legislative discretion,” and “not supported by sufficient evidence in the hearing record,” among other charges.
The lawsuit would have to be resolved as part of any agreement reached between Pacific House and the city.
One factor on Danbury’s side is that the state deadline to end Gov. Ned Lamont’s emergency COVID order allowing homeless to be housed in single-room buildings without local zoning approval has been extended to the end of December.
Translation: Individuals can remain temporarily sheltered at the Lake Avenue Extension hotel throughout the year while leaders work toward a more permanent solution.
“All the people who need to be around the table are there,” Botelho said. “They are all working together.”
rryser@newstimes.com 203-731-3342
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Deseret News
Opinion: Where are the leaders who will help Salt Lake City’s homeless?
In 2021, the number of people experiencing homelessness in Salt Lake City grew 14% We need leaders who will help by adding resources, not taking them away
We need to make strides on homelessness now.
I read last week that the number of people who are experiencing homelessness for the first time grew 14% in 2021. But what gobsmacked me was to learn that this “marks the first time that measure has increased in the past five years.” I couldn’t help but think: We’ve been poorly handling a problem that hasn’t been growing. Now I have to ask, what will we do with a growing problem?
I’ve lived and owned a business in downtown Salt Lake City most of my adult life. Daily I walk these streets. Traditionally this was my thinking time, my wind down time at the end of the day. Now, I need to stay too vigilant to let my thoughts wander. Maybe it’s sidestepping drugs or unmentionables on the sidewalk, maybe it’s people passed out or if it’s late enough, it’s personal safety I need to be aware of. This is not the city of my past, and why I’m most frustrated is this doesn’t need to be our city now either.
To be clear, I place the blame firmly on lack of leadership, not on those who need the bridge services we are clearly not capable of delivering at this moment. Now is the time to be thinking of the mayor we need to end this era of rampant homelessness and violence that has marked our capital city for the last handful of years.
We need a mayor who will change our approach to the shelter resistant, to a system that includes long-term engagement, assessment and is service-focused. Our shelters need to become resources centers — with actual resources available there. Let’s use programs that have been successful in other cities, establish a nine point of entry program for those experiencing homelessness and assign individual paths to get through.
It’s not about the money. It’s about the strategic and consistent application of resources directly into programs, not middle men. We have nationally acclaimed partners like The Other Side Academy that need government to facilitate and red tape to get out of their way.
No more talking over action and false declarations of successes. No more trying to teach nonexperts to do jobs they don’t have the skills for. We have access to experts; we have the means — let’s get the will.
So why haven’t we done this already?
We’ve started so much, why can’t we get anything over the finish line lately? In a nutshell, I believe it’s mistrust. Jurisdictions pointing fingers, not lifting up solutions, or identifying ideas and responsibilities. Salt Lake City leaders are developing a bad habit of speaking nicely in the meeting and then doing something different (or worse — nothing) after the meeting. Let’s not be afraid to debate the best ideas, and challenge each other respectfully and face to face. Adapt quickly when something isn’t working — this isn’t failure, it’s refining. Come to the best ideas and then support each other. Moving to this business model will build trust and results.
This is hard work. Tough decisions need to be made; people will be mad. Success and excellence must be demanded, and results need to be seen. Another word for this is leadership.
David Ibarra is a leadership consultant, entrepreneur, speaker and author with a background in the hospitality, automotive and talent development industries. He lives and works in downtown Salt Lake City.