The Greensboro City Council discussed but didn’t approve several new initiatives to help the homeless population at the special meeting on Monday, Oct. 10.
The City Council only passed a motion to spend $535,000 to buy 40 Pallet Homes but appeared to support other new programs that were presented by Assistant City Manager Nasha McCray.
One of those was to provide a safe parking lot for 35 vehicles for homeless people living in their cars. The parking lot according to the report would be available from 7 p.m. to 6 a.m. Security and a bathroom facility that cost an estimated $100,000 would be provided.
According to the report, the safe parking option would free up “shelter space for individuals who may not have a vehicle in which to sleep.”
To qualify for the safe parking lot a person must be homeless and living in a vehicle and “must have a desire to move back into permanent housing and participate in programming to increase stability.”
Councilmember Sharon Hightower said that the hours needed to be extended because 6 a.m. was too early to force people to leave the parking lot. There was a discussion of extending the hours but did not appear to be any resolution.
The City Council also discussed using the old Regency Inn as a winter hotel shelter from November through March 2023 with Greensboro Urban Ministry providing case management and food.
In October 2021, the City Council voted to make a $3 million, no interest, forgivable loan to Partnership Homes Inc to purchase the Regency Inn at 2701 O. Henry Blvd. and turn it into permanent supportive housing. The $3 million was later raised to $3.3 million. The plan called for the facility to be used for emergency winter housing in 2021-2022.
The contract with Partnership Homes set the deadline for the estimated $13 million construction project to convert the facility to permanent supportive housing as June 30, 2022.
At the Monday, Oct. 10 special meeting, City Councilmember Zack Matheny said that he had sent City Manager Tai Jaiyeoba nine questions about the status of the Regency Inn project but had not received any answers.
At the Monday, Oct. 10 special meeting, City Councilmember Zack Matheny said that he had sent City Manager Tai Jaiyeoba nine questions about the status of the Regency Inn project but had not received any answers.
Since the “City manager” works for the Council, one would expect him to respond immediately to Councilmember Matheny’s questions; not this pompous fool!
If Matheny has not received answers to his questions from Jalyeoba, has Matheny followed up with Jalyeoba? If not, Matheny has wasted everyone’s time.
Since one of the council members lives at Well Springs and they and the council member pay no city taxes because Well Springs is a non profit. Well Springs is gated, has security and could furnish food to the homeless in their cars, why not have them stay there over night? The tax payers are losing large sums of tax money with these retirement villages that are all non profits and pay no taxes but are allowed to vote on bonds that the tax payers have to pay back, I think they would welcome these folks to park overnight.
Amen sir.
I hope the funds given (a no interest forgivanle loan) to the Regency Inn project doesn’ t go the way the funds the City provided for rehabilitating the St. James Homes years ago.
Ah the St. James complex I think that money was provided while skip Austin was in charge. Little work was done it was declared unsafe shortly after then was torn down. And guess what no accountability for the money or how it was or wasn’t spent. Another stupid is as stupid does council.
Keep on enabling.
Well I tell you one thing, give them a free parking lot and see how fast it becomes a nasty, smelly, drug and alcohol infested gathering place. How about free parking for your tax paying citizens. Public parking downtown first hour free, then charges after that. City charges $5.00 to $20.00 parking at Greensboro Coliseum depending on event. We as tax payers are at the breaking point.
“Council-member Sharon Hightower said that the hours needed to be extended because 6 a.m. was too early to force people to leave the parking lot. “
Yeah, and the taxpayers providing the parking lot start their jobs at 7:00 am, meaning they must be up and moving well before 6:00 am.
Add sleeping in to the list of ways to enable these people that refuse to participate in society.
Thinking the pallet homes could be set up in the coliseum parking lot plus there’s plenty of parking for those in vehicles. Security perimeter is already established with controlled access, and the folks could use bathrooms in the building
Hear no evil speak no evil applies here.
Why not use coliseum complex parking lot. Plenty of staff already on payroll and facilities in place.
Bus them to Chapel Hill, they are a sanctuary city.
Sanctuary Cities are illegal, Mr. Garland.
Common sense tells us that living in a car is not safe – anywhere. There is nothing to prevent predation.
As soon as one person dies from carbon monoxide while trying to stay warm look out for the lawyers to sue, and the city like always, will bend over and we the taxpayer will be on the hook!!!
I think the people who are criticizing these proposals are ignorant of the fact that greedy landlords across the country have double and tripled rents in the past year. At the same time, large investment companies are buying up entire neighborhoods of single family houses and turning them into expensive rentals. Wages have not kept up. Add to that record-setting inflation and working people are getting hammered. Senior citizens have really been victimized by this. We’re in a housing crisis nationwide and it’s expected to get worse. Strict zoning regulations and building codes also make it nearly impossible to build an affordable home even if you already own your own land. Expect to see a lot more people living in their cars and in tent cities in the very near future if no other solutions are found. Maybe we could fix this problem if we weren’t sending billions of dollars to Ukraine.
I spoke to Jeff, the director, and he keeps changing the rules up, especially after the interview with the news reporter. I was told a couple days after being in the safe parking program that they would change the hours to a 24/7 parking program instead of 7pm-7am. It is public property and they said they want to keep the place safe and that’s why we couldn’t be there in the day time, forcing me to waste gas. There are people staying in the pallets that aren’t forced to leave at 7am. How are you going to discriminate from one homeless person to the next? The people staying in the pallets can come back anytime they please while the people in their car have to find somewhere else to park at for everyone’s “safety.” What makes a person living in their car more dangerous than the people living in the pallets?
You can tell the director never had to struggle because the interactive resource center doesn’t open until 8am-3pm so where else am I supposed to go? Or maybe I should keep wasting my gas to keep everyone safe. This needs to get fixed ASAP.