The city of South Bend on Thursday cleared a first hurdle in its years-long quest to build a homeless intake center.
After yet another bout of emotionally charged public comments, the city's redevelopment commission voted 4-1 to buy a five-acre parcel of land off of Bendix Drive which could become the location for a low-barrier shelter.
“What we’re doing here today is not a final step, is not carte blanche for anything. It is simply the first step in a long process," said Marcia Jones, the president of the redevelopment commission, echoing comments from other board members.
Eli Wax, a Republican, cast the only no vote, which came after over an hour of comments from supporters and opponents.
"I think that until we address those questions and have those conversations on how could we put this in a neighborhood and design in a way to minimize those risks, I don't think its appropriate to move forward," Wax said.
Now the proposal for the center will go before the city’s Common Council in the coming months for the parcel to be rezoned as residential and still faces a long road towards construction.
South Bend’s Director of Community Investment Caleb Bauer emphasized the city will continue to examine other sites even as talks progress regarding the Bendix site.
That assurance from city officials comes as St. Joseph County leaders have continued their opposition to the site over the past two weeks. On Wednesday, county commissioners Derek Dieter announced he is convening a task force to try and find an alternative site. The county floated the possibility of a parcel of land on Fellows Street, but the city says that site would be even closer to multiple youth service center than the currently proposed site and county leaders have already expressed that's an issue for them there.
Multiple Republican county officials asked the redevelopment commission to table the proposal, though Troy Warner, who sits on the commission, noted that any location in the city would meet with similar complaints. South Bend officials have also reiterated that they've had talks about county-owned land, including Portage Manor, but county leaders have been reticent to come to an agreement. The county has also not committed any funding for the project.
"I am skeptical that will be any site that you do not get large opposition from," Warner said. "Every time there's been a discussion about the homeless in the last eight years that I've been around, people get very impassioned. Tempers flare, fears flare and things get stoked."
The New Day Intake Center will be operated by Our Lady of the Road, which currently runs the Motels4Now program. In response to concerns about the intake program at the Knights Inn, Our Lady of the Road staff point out that the New Day center would be a $12-14 million purpose-built center, not an ad-hoc complex that was meant to be an emergency provision.
