City to hold hearing on proposed homeless shelter
May 24—The 20 overnight beds presently available for the homeless population in the Lewiston-Clarkston Valley will be gone for at least a month starting June 1.
The temporary site of a winter warming shelter at Lewiston's Salvation Army on 21st Street is closing May 31, before the city of Lewiston reaches a final decision about if it can move to a permanent site.
The Lewiston City Council voted Monday to hold a hearing on an appeal of a Planning and Zoning Commission decision to allow a permanent homeless shelter with space for as many as 35 individuals.
Council President Hannah Liedkie, made the motion to hold the hearing. The council owes it to the community to have the hearing because the decision affects the entire city, she said.
"We need to support current businesses because we can't afford to lose any more," she said.
The majority of the council sided with Liedkie, but Councilor Kathy Schroeder opposed the hearing.
"That is a very good place for a shelter," she said. "Nobody wants it, but everybody says we need it."
The hearing on the shelter, called the LC Valley Adult Resource Center, will be held June 13. The proposed location for the shelter is 1332 G St. in a vacant two-story building that previously housed Inland Cellular operations.
The center will need between two and four weeks to prepare the site once the city reaches a final decision and won't close on a deal to purchase the proposed site unless the city approves it, said Michelle King, a board member of the center, which also operates the warming shelter.
The delay will have a significant impact, she said.
"My primary concern is (homeless individuals) who are making progress toward sustainability will lose ground," King said.
A number of people who frequent the temporary shelter have landed jobs, found housing or gained ground in their battles against addiction. Others are working toward those goals, she said.
And in towns that have no low-barrier homeless shelter, people without places to stay are allowed by the Eighth Amendment of the Constitution to sit, stand, lie and sleep on any public property, King said.
That principle applies even when the public property is intended for other purposes, she said.
If a homeless person is sleeping at the bottom of a slide on a playground, they can't be told to leave, King said.
The same goes if the homeless person chooses to lie on a table in a picnic shelter reserved for a family event, she said.
The public hearing the council has planned will be on the decision the Planning and Zoning Commission made to approve a conditional use permit for the shelter after listening to testimony from more than 50 people in April.
Many of the opponents of the shelter live or work in the neighborhood where it is proposed.
They have already dealt with problems such as homeless people trespassing at businesses, trying to break into outbuildings at residences and urinating in public.
They're worried those issues will worsen if the homeless shelter opens.
Those concerns include people loitering on or near the shelter's premises when it isn't open or trying to hide items like drugs near the shelter because they are banned from the premises.
Backers of the homeless shelter believe the services it would provide would improve the situation by giving individuals opportunities.
They note that the city established the area where homeless shelters would be allowed partly because it is close to services such as health clinics that serve low-income individuals, the Idaho Department of Labor and the city of Lewiston police station. The choice followed six months of research.
Williams may be contacted at ewilliam@lmtribune.com or (208) 848-2261.
