I’ve been conducting surveys at the Farmer’s Market weekly. One passerby agreed to participate as she asked me if I had heard of the new men’s homeless shelter. She explained that it was a community project that most of the community opposed, but that the city had approved by circumventing the public. Although it’s required that they hold two public meetings for the community to weigh in, they neglected to advertise the meetings and used COVID restrictions to limit attendance. The unfenced shelter has now been built near a public elementary school.
To top it all off, after speaking with DPDA members, I realized that they agreed that what the community needed wasn’t more shelters. It already had well-funded shelters that were nowhere near capacity—the issue was that to sleep in the shelter, residents needed to stay clean. The DPDA believed that the city didn’t understand that challenges like addiction were at the core of the homelessness problem, and continued to create temporary solutions.
Although the project originally revolved around curating resources to combat gentrification, I quickly realized that the barriers to the communication of information were at the heart of most issues. Now, we’re focusing on expanding the nonprofit’s marketing and distributional channels to help it become a trusted informational hub for the city.
