Shelter’s closure utterly appalling

Steve Burger Charlottesville
Published: June 2, 2008

First, I would like to thank The Daily Progress and reporter Seth Rosen for their coverage of the forced closing of the homeless shelter at Hope Community Center.

Frankly, I find it utterly appalling that our Charlottesville government would essentially be the ones forcing the shelter to shut. Judging from The Progress’ May 26 article (“Shelter’s closure strands area homeless”), Mayor David Norris and Assistant City Manager Maurice Jones are in a tight battle to determine which of them can make the more absurd claim.

Norris suggests, “If we had a more adequate stock of housing we wouldn’t see so many” homeless people. But people don’t live in a homeless shelter because of a lack of housing for sale or rent. They’re there because they don’t have enough money to pay for that housing.

As for Jones, he emphasizes that that the shelter was “in violation of the [zoning] code and the fire code and the city has an obligation to step in and cite them.” The fire code would require the shelter to install a costly sprinkler system. The shelter has also been housing more people than its legal capacity. I challenge the reader to come up with a more ridiculous logic than this: Because this homeless shelter does not meet ideal safety standards, its inhabitants must be kicked out to live in the streets or the woods, both of which options are obviously far less safe than the shelter itself.

Are our city officials incapable of thinking outside the box and bending the rules for a good cause? Today in Charl-ottesville, once vaunted as the No. 1 community in the United States, I hang my head in shame.