Mix of support and skepticism for Motels4Now at council meeting

SOUTH BEND — At least 160 people came to Tuesday night’s 3½-hour St. Joseph County Council meeting and, out of the 42 people who spoke at the end, all but perhaps two sounded off on the Motels4Now program for the homeless.

Many, wearing yellow shirts, spoke of a dire need to keep Motels4Now going after its federal American Rescue Plan dollars run out at the end of March.

But others said the rented site, in the Knights Inn on Lincoln Way West, has caused safety issues for neighbors. Although the county had helped to start it in August 2020 with its allotment of ARP dollars, some questioned whether government should continue to bear the cost.

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Our Lady of the Road, which runs the program, is seeking more than $875,000 of ARP money for operating expenses through 2024 while it seeks other funding and a site to build a permanent home to replace it, to be called the New Day Intake Center.

Leadership of the council, with a 5-4 Republican majority, isn’t showing any interest in further ARP dollars for the program. In fact, Motels4Now is near the bottom of the council’s recent ranking of ARP council requests. Each council member had a chance to submit their own rankings, which were then averaged.

The Tribune obtained the ranking this week in a public records request. It shows 36 total requests for $41.55 million, while there are just $16.5 million of the remaining dollars. Motels4Now is sixth from the bottom, falling well below the list of 14 requests that would potentially use up the last dollars.

Council leaders have told The Tribune they’re focused on helping projects that haven’t seen any of the aid yet.

Praise for Motels4Now

Steve Camilleri, executive director of the Center for the Homeless, credited Motels4Now for serving people that the shelter hasn’t been able to serve. And, after March, he said neither his shelter nor Hope Ministries have the capacity to house them.

“We have to diversify the resources for people in need,” Camilleri said.

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Unlike other shelters, the Motels4Now concept is known as housing first, which means people can stay regardless of addictions and other issues, then work on those issues with help from Oaklawn’s mental health addictions counselor.

Katie Elliot said women staying at Motels4Now are “able to keep it together enough” to come to St. Margaret’s House, the day center for financially struggling women and their kids in South Bend, where she’s executive director.

There, they can eat, clean up and find programs to improve their lives. She counted at least five of them at the center on Tuesday. Without stable housing, she said, they’d still be on the streets.

A Motels4Now staff member named Logan spoke tearfully about how, at 22, he used to keep his distance from homeless people. Then, at this job, he witnessed a man in tears when he received a mattress and single sheet for a new dwelling of his own. A few weeks later, the man was in tears again to receive a lamp, table and TV. When the man told him he had no one with whom to spend the year-end holidays, Logan said, he realized that he’d become family to the man.

“When he talked,” Logan said, “he shared details I didn’t remember sharing with him.”

Mike Hamann was county auditor when the first rounds of federal pandemic aid came, and he helped to connect the county’s aid to homeless efforts, including Motels4Now. He told the council that, when he went to meet the homeless on the streets and in their camps, he was appalled at the “gut-wrenching” misery. People, he said, were filthy, hungry and thirsty and lacked any good access to a bathroom. They prized the sanitary wipes that volunteers brought.

“I looked into her eyes and I saw Christ, Jesus Christ,” Hamann said of one encounter. “Looking at me and saying, ‘Do not look away from me. Do not look away. Please help me.' I didn’t see drug, adult, criminals siphoning away county tax dollars.”

Steve Croaston said he used to work, then he fell behind on rent because of his health and his life tumbled. At 54, he said, he’s been in and out of hospitals because he was suicidal. And he’s thought about committing a crime so he could find some housing in a jail. He’s been at Motels4Now for a month, where he’s started counseling with Oaklawn and gotten his identification back.

Grateful, he spoke of “what it makes you feel like when you can contribute to your life.”

Kevin Smith, who owns Union Station, said one of the downtown homeless camps of 2020 was in front of a building that he was trying to develop. He now has 1.1 million square feet of building space that he’s still aiming to fill, and he appreciates the Motels4Now effort to keep the downtown clean and safe.

“This is the best I’ve seen in 40 years that people are coming together,” Smith said. “It’s also an economic advantage to the community.”

Criticism of Motels4Now

But some skeptics said the limited aid was intended to be “temporary.” Some said this matter should be left to charity, not government or tax dollars.

Tina Wilson, who lives with her 7- and 14-year-old sons across from Motels4Now, said she’s always taught her kids that the homeless just need a hand up. But now, she said, “I can’t go out without a firearm.”

She said she’s had people “camp in my back yard,” where they’ve left needles and trash, and she came face to face with one man who tried to get into her house. Neighbors’ cars have been broken into, she said. And her older son told the council that he and his brother don’t feel safe going outside on their own anymore.

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“Your heart is in the right place,” Wilson said as she questioned “the execution of it.”

Karen Orlicki, owner of Palace of Flowers, a half mile west of the Motels4Now site, said she’s run her flower shop without any trouble for 20-plus years until it got broken into last July. The cash register was stolen. When it was broken into again a week later, she said, police caught a suspect.

“I’ve never been so scared,” she said, noting how she’s picking up needles and bottles. “I’m frustrated because I can’t do anything about it.”

But, since the council meeting, Motels4Now Director Sheila McCarthy said she spoke with Orlicki and then checked the arrest records for the time of the burglary. McCarthy also checked her own records and said it appears the man arrested wasn't a Motels4Now guest. She said it also appears unlikely that he was homeless.

County Commissioner Derek Dieter said of Motels4Now, “I hope you can find the money,” but he also noted the complaints of neighbors.

“Do you think this would be in Eddy Street Commons?” he asked.

County council member Dan Schaetzle told WSBT on Tuesday: "We cannot put this facility in one part of our city and expect those businesses just to live with the consequences. It's not fair and it shouldn't have happened.”

South Bend Tribune reporter Joseph Dits can be reached at 574-235-6158 or jdits@sbtinfo.com.

This article originally appeared on South Bend Tribune: Motels4Now homeless program in heard at St. Joseph county council