By Eric Greiling<\/strong> With the City Council’s decision to reject a proposal from Union Gospel Mission to establish, operate and fund a homeless shelter in downtown Kent, an opportunity was allowed to pass largely on the opinion of the business community’s negative reaction.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n A subject with\u00a0so\u00a0much potential for polarizing various sects of the community must be evaluated with a wide-angle perspective.\u00a0Where there are many who would consider themselves interested parties, it is imperative that none of the interested parties be seen as more important, and certainly should be no more influential, than any other.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n The recent reactions from a couple of Kent business owners, whose\u00a0implication\u00a0of representing the opinions of the majority of business owners\u00a0was not substantiated, should not have been allowed to reduce the issues at hand to merely questions of money, industry and their view of\u00a0progress.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n I too am a longtime resident of Kent. I have owned a business in Kent, have many commercial clients on whom my livelihood depends that are based in Kent, and I have long been involved with working with two of the fine organizations that serve the homeless in Kent.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n I disagree with Mike Hanis’ statement that we are\u00a0“all warriors in the battle against homelessness.” Sadly, some of the initial reaction to this very attractive proposal to\u00a0improve the service levels to our least fortunate indicated that\u00a0many are\u00a0reluctant spectators willing to pretend that Kent does not already suffer the negative consequences of homelessness.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n In evaluating the proposal, it was critical to acknowledge that, simply put, the population of homeless on the streets of Kent exists right now, and according to estimates, in significant numbers.\u00a0Services currently providing evening meals have no provision or resources for providing services during the day.\u00a0Our homeless population is left to wander the streets, often in retail centers\u00a0or in the library.\u00a0 Loitering is prohibited, but moving a person does not make the person any less real in their next location.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Inadequate public restroom facilities\u00a0present an obvious problem,\u00a0leading to the necessity of using\u00a0city park and retail restrooms, and of course inappropriate places.\u00a0People without shelter add a burden to police and other public services\u00a0both in\u00a0time and resources.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n The Union Gospel Mission proposal addressed these concerns. What’s more, they offered to pay\u00a0for it, proposing to fund all operating costs of the facility in return for rent-free use of the space.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n UGM mandates that overnight guests are drug and alcohol free, dispelling speculation that those guests would be a threat to neighboring businesses at night.\u00a0The shelter would provide meals and restroom facilities that would reduce panhandling\u00a0and using our outdoors as\u00a0bathrooms.\u00a0The shelter would provide a place for the homeless to go by day, reducing the burden on the library and other public facilities.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n UGM provides drug and alcohol programs. And although I am loathe to engage in the type of speculation that opponents of the proposal demonstrated, it does stand to reason that sheltering the homeless at night reduces the burden on police services.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n It is not imperative that we even discuss so-called\u00a0“warm fuzzy” aspects of a day\/night\u00a0shelter to see its value.\u00a0Certainly there is a significant humanitarian aspect to the proposal, perhaps best\u00a0dealt with by\u00a0those who see a city as more than just a conglomeration of money-generating businesses.\u00a0But evaluation of the proposal revealed more practical benefits.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Strain on Kent<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/p>\n The negative issues of a significant homeless population exist in Kent now. The strain on\u00a0public facilities and services is real. The quality of life in Kent can be improved when citizens are not faced with their fellow citizens\u00a0urinating on their front lawn and clogging the library because they have nowhere else to go.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n And finally, a significant portion of the homeless population is in transition; homeless by misfortune and needing a safe place to rest and set their belongings as they seek work and permanent shelter.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n In meetings regarding the proposal, it was suggested more than once that, where a shelter is in theory a good idea, the impact on immediately surrounding businesses would be too great and that this particular location was not desirable. This view was often expressed by the owners of those businesses in close proximity to the proposed shelter. Sympathetic though we can be that necessary services might impact some businesses more than others, it raises the question of whether a location that adequately serves the purpose can be found that would not affect surrounding businesses.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n I submit that any location in proximity to necessary services for the homeless will be likewise in proximity to some local businesses. It is easy to say that the idea has merit, just not right here. It will be more difficult to identify a location that effectively serves the purpose while negatively affecting no one.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n We can only hope that Union Gospel Mission is resilient in attempting to revive this concept, and that another suitable location can be found that will somehow satisfy citizens and the city council. This proposal was attractive, well conceived and presented by an organization with the infrastructure and experience to manage the facility and perform as excellent city partners.\u00a0 To expect it to be perfect in all aspects to all citizens is unrealistic.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n A city is a living community, dedicated to the welfare of all its citizens in a dynamic array of interconnected relationships, where the good for one should benefit the many.\u00a0 Kent, as the sixth largest city in Washington, has to face all of the issues of a growing city, and cannot avoid or procrastinate on\u00a0the negative issues hoping they will solve themselves.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Eric Greiling is a Kent resident who has owned a business in the community.<\/em><\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" With the City Council’s decision to reject a proposal from Union Gospel Mission to establish, operate and fund a homeless shelter in downtown Kent, an opportunity was allowed to pass largely on the opinion of the business community’s negative reaction.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":106,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-4321","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-opinion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4321"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/106"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4321"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4321\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4321"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4321"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4321"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=4321"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
For the Kent Reporter<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/p>\n