According to both the Hennepin County web site and Shelter Advisory Board (SAB) recommendations to the City Council, the Shelter Advisory Board is charged with recommending policies to both the city and county to end homelessness. Yet according to the minutes of the SAB meetings for the past year, their discussions center on financing and attaining more shelter beds. Supplying more floor mats will not end homelessness. The men are homeless largely due to substance abuse or mental illness and they are chronically homeless. What is being done to turn these men�s lives around? Are there figures available that show the success or failure of the overnight shelters we have?
There is a proposal for a men�s overnight shelter at the Children�s Gospel Mission on 7 Corners in Minneapolis. The annual operating budget for this 25-man shelter is $180,000. This is after an estimated $350,000 is spent to bring the building up to code. If you spread the renovation costs over 10 years you end up with a final cost of $716.00 per month, per man, for a mat on the floor. This is an overnight shelter--not an apartment. It�s a spot on the floor for the night. (No food or services are covered by this amazing budget.) An outrageous amount to spend at any time! Now, in the face of a projected 3 billion dollar state budget deficit, property tax increases and budget cuts we�re to spend these scarce funds on an overnight shelter that will only sleep 25 men? This is an expensive band-aid exacerbated by the small, 25-person capacity of the shelter given fixed administrative, maintenance and staffing costs. Are we so desperate to show that we�re meeting the production goals of the Hennepin County Homeless Task Force that we don�t care what it costs or how much good it actually does? If the end result is simply keeping 25 men from freezing 4 months out of the year this is way too big a price tag. Let�s take this $350,000 rehab money and build a structure tailored to fit the situation. We can turn on the heat and shelter 100 men for the same operational costs. This makes more sense to me and, I�m sure, the other taxpayers of Hennepin County Dan Prozinski Cedar Riverside _______________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A City-focused Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Unsubscribe, Digest, and more: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
