THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, February 10, 1996 TAG: 9602090015
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A10 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: Medium: 69 lines
Virginia Beach City Council voted Tuesday to accept an $800,000 federal grant to establish a permanent homeless shelter in the city. That decision took courage.
Unfortunately, council allowed debate about whether to accept the money to turn into a heated and premature argument over where the shelter would be built.
For the past nine years the city has relied on the generosity of local churches to take turns providing nighttime shelter during the cold winter months. Homeless people are picked up by bus every evening, transported to the host church and transported back to the Oceanfront in the morning.
This grant provides ``brick-and-mortar'' money to start a permanent shelter - either through new construction or renovations to an existing structure. For the people who regularly seek shelter this will ensure a safe, clean place to sleep any night of the year, not just when it's cold. Amenities like showers and a supply of toiletries could make some of these folks employable, perhaps decreasing the numbers of homeless people on the streets of Virginia Beach.
Getting the money was the easy part. Settling on who will build and operate the shelter will be thornier.
But the real battle will be over location.
Councilman W. W. ``Bill'' Harrison sent an ominous signal Tuesday when he proposed that the city accept the money, with one big caveat: The shelter could not be built in the Nottingham South neighborhood that he represents.
Homeless shelters and halfway houses and jails are usually viewed with fear and distaste by local residents. They worry - often with reason - that property values will plummet; that the safety of the neighborhood will be jeopardized and the very presence of a shelter, with street people loitering outside, will be an eyesore.
We don't blame residents of Nottingham South or other neighborhoods for their concern. Placement of a shelter must be planned with tact and intelligence. That's where City Council comes in. It needs to offer leadership at this time - not fuel fears. It must assure citizens that there will be a thorough citywide search for the best location followed by full and fair hearings before the decision is made.
Council must also make a convincing case that building a shelter for the less fortunate is a moral obligation of a caring community. The reality is, the shelter is needed and must go somewhere.
One location being mentioned is in the vicinity of 18th Street where the city already owns a great deal of property. This proposal is worthy of close consideration, especially because of its proximity to the 2nd Precinct police station. The law-enforcement presence would assuage some of the public's fear of the homeless. And more realistically, it might help protect some of the people seeking shelter, especially women and children, from those who prey on the down and out.
By agreeing to build a homeless shelter, City Council has taken a big step toward acknowledging that Virginia Beach is a city in the fullest sense - with all the problems that accompany urbanization and the willingness to address them.
The late Democratic Sen. Hubert Humphrey of Minnesota once said politics could be divided between the politics of hope and the politics of fear. If that is so, then the Virginia Beach City Council embraced the politics of hope by agreeing to accept the money earmarked for a homeless shelter. Unfortunately, it also yielded to the politics of fear on Tuesday night by allowing one community to immunize itself against consideration for the shelter. by CNB