There was a whole lot of emotion vented by those who live and work in downtown Greensboro during the speakers from the floor segment of the Tuesday, July 9 Greensboro City Council meeting.
The start of the meeting was dominated by numerous speakers – often emotional ones – complaining about what has become a major issue in the city: the Interactive Resource Center, the homeless center in downtown Greensboro that doesn’t provide beds for the homeless but does offer services and is a place where they can do things like shower and check email.
In recent weeks, the disruption by the center to the businesses and residents near it has been the subject of a barrage of complaints from people who live and work in the area – and things came to a head at the July 9 City Council meeting, with many complaining that the problems must be fixed.
Other speakers argued that the true cause of the problem was the “rich” and “elite” people in power, such as the Greensboro City Council members, who, they said, show little to no respect for the homeless.
The complaints ranged from the panhandlers who are sometimes threatening, to attempted assaults on business customers who come to the area, public urination, constant trash accumulation, and drug use and drug dealing – all of which create a place where business clients and residents are afraid for their safety.
Andy Zimmerman, a prominent downtown developer, said the solution was for the IRC – which was once a homeless day center and is now a day and night center – to move to a new location.
Zimmerman (pictured above) said that, ideally, the IRC would move to a larger facility that could handle a lot more people as well as provide additional services to the ones the Center is currently able to offer.
He said a whole lot more people are coming to the IRC than when it first opened up.
“We just can’t handle the amount of people that are going through the IRC,” Zimmerman said.
He added that he knows it’s not a “snap your fingers” fix when it comes to finding a new location.
Zimmerman said the new facility should offer wrap-around services that would mean the homeless didn’t have to walk from one side of the city to the other in the heat, the rain, and the cold to get to places like Greensboro Urban Ministry on Gate City Boulevard and then have to walk back to the IRC.
“The other cities that are more successful dealing with this issue have a campus-like community with these wrap-around services,” he said.
Zimmerman said better leadership of the Interactive Resources Center was also needed.
“It takes good leadership to run a good organization and I believe – I’ve spoken to a lot of people about it – we do not have good leadership at the IRC,” he said.
Greensboro Mayor Nancy Vaughan and Chairman of the Guilford County Board of Commissioners Skip Alston, along with law enforcement officials from both the city and the county, as well as other downtown stakeholders, had held a meeting on Monday, July 8 and one thing that many people in the room that day seemed to agree on was that there needed to be more of a presence of police and sheriff’s deputies at the center.
Other solutions being proposed include beefing up services that prevent homelessness in the first place and local governments buying hotels and other properties where the homeless could be housed.
A lot of solutions are being discussed, however, the speakers at the Greensboro City Council meeting wanted action now.
One business owner said that, for eight years, she has tried to work with the IRC but things have simply not worked out.
One speaker said the students from Bennett College and NC A&T are greatly disadvantaged because they use that corridor to go to and from the Depot for travel.
“We tell those students for four years we want them to be in our community and we don’t put our best foot forward,” she said.
She referenced a large email string that’s gone viral in the community lately because it lists many of the problems people have experienced and it includes pictures from surveillance cameras.
Kim Grimsley-Ritchy, who has been one of those spearheading the effort for a change in the situation, has a business at 500 E. Washington St.
“I’m a licensed textile designer with my own business here in Greensboro for 13 years and I’ve been doing this for about 33 years,” she said at the meeting. The reason we’re here today is to bring the community together to make a change that probably needed to happen sooner versus later.”
She said the IRC has gotten so dangerous that clients are afraid to come.
“Our property is across the street and I personally see this every day I’ve been there, almost every day for the last four or five months, multiple times a day.”
She said she’d seen everything from drug use to stabbings.
“I was not there for the person being chased with a gun,” she said, adding that it was not unusual to see fighting multiple times a day.
“The trash is terrible but the last thing that this conversation is about is the trash,” she told the councilmembers.
“I know at least 25 homeless by their name and their information; they’re all suffering and these people are not getting the help they need due to the daily chaos.”
“I hope change is on the way,” she concluded, “because we need it and I hope we come together as a community and I hope that the City Council and the commissioners and the citizens and everybody involved comes together in unison to understand what the problem is. Nobody wants to see the IRC go away. We need it badly – we just need some change.”
Though trash isn’t the main problem, critics of the current situation say that trash accumulates around the Center and around cars parked in the area from people who are living out of their cars.
One speaker said her son was walking outside of their building and a woman was just standing there.
“He asked her to leave and she went to the bushes and pulled out a metal pole that she had hidden in our bushes and threatened him with it,” the speaker said. “She also said she had a gun and she was going to shoot him.”
In another incident, one business client was leaving a building with her 11-year-old daughter and a man was sitting on the front steps. The man wouldn’t move so they had to jump off of the steps to go to the car, and, as they were walking, he got up and started following them to her car, saying something to them as he walked.
Both the City of Greensboro and Guilford County leaders seem to be getting the message these days because there’s widespread agreement among elected leaders that the problem is major and has to be addressed.
However, there’s still a big lack of agreement as to how that should be done.
For now, a greater police officer and sheriff’s deputy presence seems to be the one thing that just about everyone agrees on.
Mayor Vaughan has said that closing the IRC is not an option.
Looks like Skip and Nancy are getting what they deserve with the current ” leadership” they provide. Of course the citizens are getting screwed as usual. Keep voting the way you do, it won’t get any better.
They’re worried about the location of the new IRC building? They do realize the people they’re catering to are homeless, so they can move literally anywhere, right? Just make sure it’s near a shopping center so they can continue to harass people for their hard earned money, and that there are lots of businesses to urinate on and dump their trash at.
I would be interested to know which Zimmerman is citing when he says they are doing better in terms of housing people. Everything I read about every city both bigger and smaller than Greensboro is dealing with homelessness and making little progress. He should run for city council since he knows the solution.
Less Whining and an approach seeking solutions could go a long way….
I can fully appreciate various perspectives and disagreements on these issues yet the only realistic presentation seems to be coming from a real estate developer. Go figure. Perhaps, at least, it is a possible starting point and one which perhaps can lead to the most positive outcome in the short term in order to move forward with a longer term solution to the homeless problem, which is occuring throughout The Nation.
“ He said a whole lot more people are coming to the IRC than when it first opened up.”.
Funny how things happen. Word of mouth is a great way to communicate, one tells another where “free” food and services are and the quantity of people grows exponentially.
While I recognize we don’t do anything about mental health I also recognize that people are inherently not responsible when they know someone else will take care of them. The “wrap around “ services Mr.Zimmerman makes mention of must include self respect and labor traded for services, the FREE MEAL method of absolving guilt simply doesn’t work.
The council has tied the hands of the police to arrest many of these folks. It will take someone being assaulted or worse before anything is done. Many downtown business owners have had enough and some are moving out. Marikay wants to bring the homeless to the table in discussions. What really needs to happen is this council needs to be voted out, all of them and the next council not discuss the issue to death but do something including allowing the police to do their jobs and arrest those that want to break the law instead of patting them on the back and asking them to move along.
I understand that this is a problem. However, the same can be said about Summit Avenue and the Oaks motel. Folks like me and many others have to deal with the homeless and the criminals. You can’t even pump gas or go into a store without being harassed. It’s just not safe regardless of the time of day or night. Yet GPD turns their heads with a precinct only 2 blocks away. GPD is down over 100 officers. Who would want a job that’s dangerous also no backbone from lower protocol to the highest? Greensboro is not the town I grew up in since the 1960s until this day.
Absolutely. . .good post. And remember, the council dropped a lot of the police officer vacancies since they don’t need more police I guess. This city council wants to be nice to everyone, and no one other than Zack, is willing to do something about it. . .for fear of losing elections in the future. See how this works?
GSO was once a great city and can be again with the right leadership.GSO can not say they were not warned. “We don’t want to be like Asheville” but it fell on deaf ears. Too bad as we are there now. The loose leaf program was just a start. No we need new leadership to fix it. I want to see GSO great again.
I have recently been to downtown Greenville SC and downtown Wilmington. Did not see one homeless beggar at either location. Was able to walk freely to a concert and restaurants without trash, people begging or intimidating. Conversely I have been to downtown Greensboro once in the recent past and felt like I was in a dump (had eaten at Liberty Oak and was walking down Elm Street with someone to their vehicle). Streets in downtown aren’t clean and it smells of urine.
“Mayor Vaughan has said that closing the IRC is not an option.”
But tolerating the activities that go on around there like the tax paying business owners who get harassed, tax paying pedestrians getting threatened and harassed, tax paying citizens personal property being tagged, vandalized, and stolen, those types of activities?
What’s the common thread in that statement…everybody being victimized are hard working tax payers who don’t mean squat to Nancy and Skip.
City provides plenty of bathrooms and lots of trash receptacles for the donor class at Bryan Park and Mandate Mayors Opera house is getting new bathrooms for lots of tax dollars.
If government leaders can’t even provide restrooms and trash receptacles for the decades of homeless downtown then it should be clear the Mandate Mayor and her cabal of sycophants only pay lip service when “stakeholders” demand action …. unfortunately it will only result in over policing and more of the same.
IRC does a bit more than provide trash cans and bathrooms. They provide counseling etc…
Providing more counseling to people with psychiatric problems is useless since they don’t have the ability (mental) or inclination to change their ways. But. . . liberals are always of the mindset that they want to ensure they are helping. . .”Hello. . .I’m from the government and I’m here to help you”
i also provide counseling but call it gum flapping.
You and me both.
But IRC has some real dedicated people with real training to work people through the worst times of their lives.
I have said it before and will say it again.
The powers to be will just throw money at it, and hope it goes away.
Does sound like leadership at the IRC has either, at least, ignored the issues occurring outside their operating area, or at worst, enabled the behavior outside their facilities by not providing the right resources to the homeless community they service. To have allowed the issue to reach a level that a community meeting had to be called shows that IRC leadership lacked ‘ownership and accountability’ of the issues surrounding their facilities. THEY should have been the ones to bring the request for greater security to the area, NOT the community coordinated complaints.
IRC offers critically needed services, and they have a proven track record of helping many people off the streets. But this just feeds the ‘not in my backyard’ complaints for any future service centers for the homeless by their ignoring a blatant community issue that was clearly their responsibility to coordinate resolving before it reach its current levels.
Looks like new leadership is in order.
The lack of a police presence and a lack of leadership by the council and mayor is the issue. Remember. . .it was, and is, a liberal city council that did not want to increase police salaries when other cities were increasing their salaries and hiring more officers. Even Hickory was ahead of Geekboro at one time and Sanford set a high bar when they made $60,000 entry level salaries a couple of years ago. If GBO had a willingness of conservatives to run for office, things might change. But. . . .GBO is a liberal city with a fool-proof get out the vote in east Geekboro, so that’s whistling in the wind. As the old saying does. . . .you get what you pay for, and that means elections have consequences. . . .same for the county.
Let them stay in the college dorms over the summer when they aren’t being used. Showers, and comfortable air conditioned buildings….. There’s even a cafeteria where they can get fresh free food!
A cafeteria where they get “free” food?
T.A. N. S. T. A. A. F. L. ( There Ain’t.No Such Thing As A Free Lunch) means someone has to pay for it. Thing doesn’t include the cost of the power for and maintenance of the air conditioning, the utilities of lights and water not to mention the repair of the damages that can be expected. Allowing homeless into hotels has resulted in eye opening damages to these structures as human nature doesn’t place as much value on that which is given ss opposed to that which is earned.
My wife’s church group among others provides bag lunches, and in the past even hot lunches, for as many as 60 people from their own pockets; the staff has been at times unprofessional and have tried to take food that’s been brought for the clients. The recent reports of malfeasance by the late director was not at all encouraging either. I’m sure the church ladies will contimue their works but realizing leadership from the city manager and mayor is an imperative to see that streets, sanitation and the police need to work to remove those elementals that adversely impact not just the local businesses but the clients of IRC who I’m sure would like to feel safe from predation. An homeless or indigent criminal is just as detrimental to good order as any criminal and a blind eye should not be turned just because they are disadvantaged.
Who is the man harassing women that works for Access GSO Transportation? City Of Greesboro needs to investigate him.
We moved to Greensboro in 2005 from Pennsylvania. At that time, we were so happy to see the streets clean and you could walk downtown without worrying about violence taking place. Since that time, we have witnessed the decline in Greensboro’s, once very nice city. We now live in Julian, NC (Guilford County-homeowners paying taxes), however we rarely go to Greensboro anymore for fear of our safety. We go to another city/county to do our shopping, etc because of this situation. I agree with most of the comments. I did some research and found that nearly ALL of the council members are democrat as is the mayor. I do believe this is the reason for the decline of Greensboro. There needs to be a change in council and leadership, sooner rather than later, otherwise Greensboro will become a mirror image of a city in California!
For sure, Lorie. Also used to WALK and work around East Washington Street. Nowadays I wouldn’t dare without body armor and a 360° swivel.
Maybe the downtown businesses and other interested people should use buses to transport the homeless people to the residences and communities of the City Council and County Commissioners and drop them off. The homeless will eventually return to the IRC, but our representatives will get an earful from their neighbors and friends about the homeless problem. Then, maybe some concrete action will take place. In other words implement the Texas/Florida plan in moving illegals from Texas/Florida to areas that were not feeling the impact of supporting illegal migrants. In Greensboro, do the same with the homeless. Give them free transport, a few dollars, a sandwich, water, and drop them off in the location where our illustrious leaders live.
You’re describing human trafficking.
Wish that the IRC would help those who need it,and want it, moving the problem to another part of town is just that, I have yet received and kind of assistance and I’ve been homeless and staying on and off at the IRC.
Dr Martin Luther King Jr said judge by the content of the character not by the color of the skin but I must say and yes you can call me racist for state and effect if you want to? If you go by the IRC random and road area where all of this trouble is happening and you will see that 99.99% of the people doing it are black…. People should take care of their own communities and not allow this to happen but it is happening where people allow it because of the content of the character of the people there..
An old adage, with a small addition of my own…
Give a man a fish, he will eat for a day, then return again every day for more
Teach a man to fish and he will eat for life.
IRC does that exactly. Just some people are slower learnings than others. Give their website a review. Some strong testimonials of people learning to fish for the first time in a long time.
Sheriff Rogers is right, that Business needs to hired REAL LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICERS vs some UNARMED FLASHLIGHT CARRYING SECURITY to handle those people when they get belligerent and threatening. Even at the Depot train station. Some of those homeless people do not respect and follow orders. You not caring a gun so they don’t see you in a respectful manner. It’s almost like they see them as a Barney Fife type character. At the same time I blame the Mayor and at City Council more so than I do Skip Alston. Skip wanted to turn Erwin Montessori Elementary School building on Bessemer Avenue in Greensboro into a shelter. Zack Matheny has wanted to turn a Hotel into a Homeless Shelter. Both have been either shot down or a vote kicked down the road by the Mayor and the Other City Council Members. That Mayor is Hell Bent to keep the Homeless Downtown near the Train Station, Parks, Library, Museums and Businesses. I will be glad when she gone and getting those City Council Members out for some Younger Fresh Minds. Many of them, Most of them have been in 20 years and almost all of them are over the ages of 65. We need some 35-50 year olds in there with a vision and a more urgent timetable to get stuff done this city.
Hey Time, the mayor and council had nothing to do with the plans changing for Erwin school. Skip and the county bought the property from the school system and they are in charge of what happens there. I’m not a fan of the mayor or council but you need to get your facts straight and place blame where it belongs
Homelessness is not a crime, although there are political factions that have no empathy and wish to make homelessness a crime. There are no easy solutions to alleviate homelessness but there are other agencies than just the IRC, such as Tiny House Community Development, Inc. THCD has a location, the Hope Center, at 360 West Gate City Boulevard. Check it out. Also, the city and county need to do more for other agencies, like Tiny House Community Development, instead of pouring all the funds into the IRC. The IRC political connections should be reviewed as well.
Your moniker of “Time For a Change” should be the rallying cry of all citizens of Geekboro. Vote them all out and start over. The problem is, the council has their pet projects and groups which they depend upon to get out the vote to keep the current council in office. As a result, the debacle of a governing council is on full display. . .maybe why mayor Nannie is not running again. . .thanks goodness.
As the old saying goes. . . .”you get what you pay for”, so it’s the citizens of Geekboro who are responsible for keeping these folks in office.
The homeless in Greensboro has been an issue since 2010, always a subject of discussion. How to keep panhandling down, keep them off the benches and hanging out at Center City Park. They have been and still are an embarrassment for the City and the Mayor and Zack Matheny. And when the Bid was ran as an outside source that area was cleaned daily, I have to assume the City can’t do what it promised as with Center City Park.
Some fine Christian comments on here. Who knew so many rhino readers disliked Jesus’ teachings. More of an Old Testament crowd I guess. Maybe read the fine print.
WWJD?
Offer $.50 a pound to pick up the trash. The place would be spotless.
Close it asap!! They allow underage drinking to minors nobody is getting any help, it’s a nuisance nothing but drug addicts and alcoholics, there are plenty other organizations that do a way better job with helping the community then this.
Altruism is a tricky thing. Of course, we want to take of the orphans and widows. No one wants to abandon the truly helpless among us.
On the other hand, whoever who will not take care of themselves will be drawn to whomever will. Somehow this has become panhandler nation for way too many people. Until society solves the underlying problems causing this, which I do not see happening, these people will flock to any port in a storm.
Since local governments lack the resources, ability and political will to eradicate poverty and alter human nature, the only course of action is to move the problem somewhere else. Will Greensboro continue to accept the kind of leadership that allows this problem to persist as do those in our mega urban areas?
Let us pray…………………………………………………………
Good post.
As the old saying goes. . . .when you know you’re going down the wrong road, turn around and go back. Unfortunately, this council is only interested in getting elected, then re-elected, and raking in the $$$$$ for retirement and hiring their friends who have non-profits seeking money from the council. . .aka Yvonne Johnson.
You should all be very proud. This series of submissions is passionately detailed and well argued, yet there is no bickering back and forth or name calling.
Aside from the Un-housed situation, I’m very proud to see my fellow citizen’s comport themselves so mannerly and kind to one another.
Kindness and respect are what is needed here and this community of editorialists has shown those traits are in abundance in the Greensboro Community.
Andy Z. is only there because it is costing him money. Yes the IRC needs leadership for sure. Kennedy has got what she wants from the IRC and is working on making cash from the city in other areas. These wealthy people don’t give a rats ass about the IRC or the homeless population. They just want the problem to disappear because it hurts there bottom line.
Housing is the biggest barrier to the homeless whether they are going to the IRC or GUM. The city has held housing summits and tried to offer incentives to potential builders. They addressed the issues renters faced with Wrenn Zealy. Since then Smith Homes was demolished. Ground still hasn’t been broken for the planned rebuild. Fewer landlords and apartment complexes will accept housing vouchers due to the hoops they have to jump through and the slow payments from GHA. Apartment complexes are being stricker on background checks and are requiring 3x the income which rules out individuals receiving SSI. But none of this was mentioned. The root of the problem is there is not enough housing. I’m a case manager. I face this every day. The IRC can’t help house individuals if there’s no housing. The problem is just going to keep growing until more affordable housing is a reality.
affordable housing has become the ‘minimal’ little ‘box’ zoning will allow & nothing the size & quality our parents created then enjoyed. ‘tiny’ homes will be ‘every’ home or ‘tiny’ apartments ?