BELLINGHAM -- With a fierce stare, Pastor Chuck Sargent describes how homeless people he's feeding have slashed his tires, only to come back later and apologize. He says one is threatening to kill him. The rules prevent sleeping on the property, but drunks still pass out on the front porch.
From the log-cabin-style building in Old Town, Sargent and his Church on the Street Bellingham practice tough love for the homeless. But he's first to admit it's not easy.
That's why he doubts the city's plan to transform the industrial area -- Bellingham's Skid Row, as one neighbor calls it -- into an urban village with commercial-residential buildings and a mix of people. He doesn't believe the homeless and condo owners will blend.
"If they can't co-exist with the people ministering to them, how are they going to co-exist with the people who give them nothing?" he asked. "You're asking for trouble if you develop this into high-rises."
The city's plan calls for redeveloping Old Town, which is between and includes parts of the Lettered Streets neighborhood and downtown.
Will the homeless and condo owners mix like peanut butter and jelly, or oil and water? Will their presence slow redevelopment? Or will redevelopment simply push them out?
Opinions vary. But city officials and a New York-based group specializing in public spaces say successful redevelopment has been done elsewhere and can work in Old Town.
"Design for your hopes, not your fears," said Ethan Kent, a vice president at New York-based Project for Public Spaces, which in 2006 advised leaders in Whatcom County. "Building a city out of fear of that population is not going to create a great city."
The City Council in March approved the Old Town plan, which calls for adding between 860 and 1,120 housing units and up to 400,000 square feet of commercial space by 2022.
The city already has invested about $8 million in local, state and federal money in Old Town, and it has committed to millions more. Money has been spent on environmental restoration of Whatcom Creek and improvements to Maritime Heritage Park and Holly and Central streets.
The city is now waiting for redevelopment to happen.
Stakeholders disagree on how a visible homeless population will affect those efforts.
Developer Fred Bovenkamp is optimistic that redevelopment can happen with the homeless there. He owns land and is planning projects in or near Old Town. "I would walk that area any time of the day or night and not feel unsafe," he said.
One of his projects includes 63 housing units and 5,000 square feet of retail/office space at the former site of Hempler's meat company at F and Astor streets. That's across from the Lighthouse Mission, which provided nearly 9,000 meals in August. But in the more than three years Bovenkamp has owned the site, he's never had vandalism.
Bovenkamp said the city erred in letting Lighthouse Mission Ministries take over three corners of F and Holly streets -- the gateway to Old Town. Lighthouse is now building that third part -- a $1.5 million, 25-bed shelter opposite its main facility.
Still, he said, the mission provides crucial services in the community, and redevelopment could co-exist with the homeless.
Lighthouse Executive Director Ron Buchinski hung up on a Bellingham Herald reporter and didn't respond to several follow-up messages. He did not comment to the city during creation of the Old Town plan, said Tara Sundin, who managed forming the plan.
Bovenkamp points to Seattle's Belltown as an example where condominiums successfully moved in next to homeless services. Belltown has more than 8,600 housing units, at a density of about 40 per acre, and the city of Seattle wants 4,700 more units there by 2024.
Bellingham officials hope redevelopment will attract more people to what some people have nicknamed "Maritime Homeless Park."
"That will, I think, really help the comfort of the park and will bring more people down there," Sundin said. A planned playground there will also draw families with children, she said.
Others aren't so confident.
Old Town property owner John Lemperes last year told city staff he was concerned about the impact to the homeless and that redevelopment might be limited by their presence.
Michael McAuley, vice chairman of the Lettered Streets Neighborhood Association, said the homeless create "a redevelopment challenge for that part of town."
The Lighthouse Mission has done a fantastic job of helping homeless, he said, but the more it expands the less businesses will want to locate in what he called "Bellingham's Skid Row." He suggested the city help the mission relocate.
"The city is optimistic, I think, in glossing over some of the problems," he said, "because they just don't know how to deal with it."
What will happen to the homeless amid redevelopment?
Developer Ken Imus remembers when Fairhaven was empty lots, stray animals, taverns and drugs. In the early 1970s, he bought his first building and spruced it up. He's also constructed new buildings. It took years, he said, but he eventually helped create a new atmosphere.
Redeveloping and cleaning up Old Town means the homeless have to go, he said. But he doesn't have a solution.
"You can't have it both ways. You can't have transients and homeless and expect grandma to bring the grandkids and come shopping," he said. "It's been proven around the country. It just doesn't work."
Chris Grabber, a homeless man who volunteers at Church on the Street Bellingham, fears the homeless will be pushed out.
"What the city will do is put the high-rises in, and that will be the reason to boot the homeless out of here," he said.
Others say a blending of demographics will benefit everyone.
In successful redevelopments, no one demographic dominates the public space, said Kent, of the Project for Public Spaces. The best way to handle areas with homeless is to bring in other people with new developments designed to create attractive, vibrant shared public spaces, he said.
Using those spaces actively -- with outdoor concerts, vendors and outdoor cafe seating -- also helps make the area feel safer, he added.
1 comment:
It would seem that adding 800-1000 new units in Bellingham would tend to decrease the price of housing somewhere in town which is a positive movement in some respects for the homeless.
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