South Bend fire chief halts overcrowded meeting with outcry on low-barrier homeless shelter

SOUTH BEND — So many people care about the proposed site for a new low-barrier homeless center in South Bend that a large room in The Beacon Resource Center couldn't contain them Thursday night.

An hour in, the meeting was postponed.

An overflowing crowd led South Bend Fire Chief Carl Buchanon — responding to a concerned call about the huge audience placed by St. Joseph County Commissioner Derek Dieter, Dieter confirmed to The Tribune — to crash the meeting being hosted by the chief's boss, South Bend Mayor James Mueller.

"No.1, this is not safe," Dieter told The Tribune when asked to explain why he called. "No. 2, people cannot hear and see the (presentation).”

Arriving with firefighters in tow about an hour after the meeting started, Buchanon said the room's capacity under Indiana code is 200 people, both sitting and standing. There were hundreds at Thursday's meeting, including those who formed a line outside the room and peered in at the events through a glass window.

With dozens of people left in line for public comment, the mayor canceled the remainder of the meeting and said it would be rescheduled at a larger venue. On Friday afternoon, a spokeswoman for the mayor announced the next meeting will take place Tuesday, Feb. 6, at 6 p.m. at LaSalle Academy. The school is at 2710 Elwood Ave. on the northwest side.

The tense evening saw the mayor face backlash about the city's attempt to buy land on the far northwest side to serve as the future home of the New Day Intake Center, a proposed 80-bed low-barrier homeless shelter to be led by the Catholic charity Our Lady of the Road.

Some opponents reject an abundance of data cited by South Bend leaders showing that a low-barrier shelter, which houses people without requiring them to remain sober or to earn income, reduces homelessness more effectively than programs that require people to work or to undergo treatment for drug or alcohol abuse. A review of 26 studies found that housing-first shelters with supplementary medical services were 88% more effective at reducing homelessness and 41% more effective at improving housing stability than treatment-based programs.

Housing-first approaches also lower the cost of caring for people who are homeless, studies find. In 2013, the state of Indiana found that it would save $1,149 per person by pairing a housing-first model with permanent supportive housing sites, such as South Bend's Hope Avenue Homes.

Instead of the data, the critics point to the vagrancy and the perceived uptick in crime related to Motels4Now, a low-barrier shelter that's operated at the former Knights Inn Motel on Lincoln Way West since August 2020. South Bend Police Department data shows that, while calls for service to the motel hovered around 300 in 2021 and 2022, they fell by about 36% to 189 last year.

But the most specific criticism of the idea centers on what's near the proposed new site.

The land on the 3000 block of Bendix Drive, about two miles north of Motels4Now, would be within a mile of a day care, a Catholic parish school, residential neighborhoods and several small businesses. Led by county officials like Dieter, critics say a new shelter would disrupt the area and lower surrounding property values.

Opponents also rebuked the speed of the city's attempt to buy the land. After the South Bend Community School Corp. board passed a resolution Jan. 22 to sell the five-acre parcel in question to city government for $277,750, the South Bend Redevelopment Commission was set to finalize the deal three days later.

But commission members voted unanimously to postpone their vote on the sale, saying the public needed more information.

"This is not just a NIMBY — you know, Not In My Backyard," said James Masters, an attorney and a homeowner on the northwest side of South Bend, into a microphone feet away from Mueller. "The property owners and the businesses located in the vicinity of Lincoln Way and Bendix have seen firsthand the deterioration of the neighborhood."

Homeless advocates say the New Day center would be an essential addition to the area's network of care for people who are homeless. Without it, they fear a return to a situation in 2020 that prompted the creation of Motels4Now: more than 100 people living in tents in downtown South Bend.

Leaders of Motels4Now say the program has helped more than 700 people since its inception. More than 200 guests have moved on to permanent housing, with three of four still stably housed today.

"For someone with severe mental illness who's acquired an addiction because there's not adequate mental health care that's available to them, the only place that's become possible for them is Motels4Now, which is a much more cost-effective option than either the jail or the hospital," said Motels4Now director Sheila McCarthy.

"What stability of housing does," McCarthy added, "is allow for people to look at what's next in their life. And they're able to move into permanent housing, to go into treatment, to reunite with family members from whom they've been estranged."

Email South Bend Tribune city reporter Jordan Smith at JTsmith@gannett.com. Follow him on X: @jordantsmith09

This article originally appeared on South Bend Tribune: Hundreds attended meeting about homeless shelter. Fire chief halted it