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City officials and the nonprofit Interfaith Community Shelter group have come to a new agreement that they hope will ease tensions around the publicly owned shelter for homeless.
A deal adopted by City Council on April 8 is aimed at starting to resolve issues brought up in recent meetings with neighbors and business owners who expressed concerns about safety and livability issues they say are caused by the facility at 2801 Cerrillos Road, the old Pete's Pets building.
Councilors agreed to appropriate an additional $12,990 in emergency funds to the nonprofit—money they they say will enable additional staffing so it doesn't have to kick out its guests so early in the morning. Officials who operate the overnight emergency shelter during its winter season have been asking guests to leave as early as 7 am due to a lack of funding for a staff person to watch over the building in the morning.
Guy Gronquist, chairman of the board of the Interfaith Community Shelter, says the money will allow for officials to keep doors open in the mornings on Mondays and Wednesdays, as well as on the weekends, when a rotating cast of faith groups provide lunches to the homeless.
"It goes a long way to answer some of the neighbors' concerns," he says of the agreement.
He says officials chose Mondays and Wednesdays because that's when the shelter isn't open during the day. The shelter hosts resource days on Tuesdays and Thursdays, when a variety of services are made available to the shelter's guests.
The winter season, when the shelter is open overnight, ends Saturday May 9, says Gronquist.
The agreement requires the Interfaith Community Shelter, the nonprofit that the city pays to oversee services provided to the homeless at the building, to patrol the perimeter of the facility and adjacent streets on a daily basis and "remove trash and debris as allowed by weather."
Shelter officials, per the agreement, will also "encourage" overnight guests to leave the vicinity of the shelter in the mornings and to not "loiter near the business or residents in the area."
The agreement came after months of tension between the city, nonprofit and neighborhood. City officials held three community meetings about what it calls the Santa Fe Resource Opportunity Center starting in January, and also conducted a site review of the shelter.
The city, meanwhile, agreed to direct staff to work with the nonprofit to obtain necessary funding and "to ensure the safety of the community in the provision of services to homeless individuals and families."
The city also agreed to "determine the feasibility of installing new sidewalks in the immediate vicinity of the shelter"; to direct staff to determine where additional lights should be placed in the surrounding streets; and to "install traffic and pedestrian signage as appropriate to improve safety."
City Hall also agreed to make fire department responses to calls at the shelter "less disruptive" and to provide more police patrols in the area, to evaluate data of crime in the area and to assist with a neighborhood watch.
Santa Fe Reporter