September 24, 2009 9:16 am

Just The Facts Please On The Norwalk Homeless Shelter

I usually don’t discuss zoning stuff here because in my capacity as a zoning commission member, the thoughts I have related to land use belong in the FOIA-able arena of commission meetings and hearings. But I have been thinking about the Norwalk homeless shelter zoning application for a long time, and will likely continue to do so because while our decision was a denial, it was not an easy one to make.

In a perfect world, all applicants would come before zoning fully prepared with every detail about why they need our approval to do something differently from the “by-right” regulations. But the world is not always perfect, and so the we have to do our best with the information that is provided to us.

There’s been much talk about East Norwalk and the shelter. The shelter’s plan was not to open a facility in East Norwalk, and all the drama about the “threat to East Norwalk”� was spurned into inflammatory over drive� from council member Nick Kydes. Kydes, a former zoning commission member no less, acted inappropriately.

The zoning commission struggled with this application. The thing is, a new building alone was not going to solve all the complicated issues facing neighborhood. The commission gave a continuance to the applicant to provide more time for them to respond to questions raised by the commission at the public hearing. Those answers did not come.

In contrast, when similar questions were raised of another application, this time for the relocation of the Norwalk Community Health Center, answers came. The management and board of the Community Health Center were responsive and provided answers to the commission’s questions, and even shared concerns that the commission had.

The credibility of any organization is based on the ability of its management team. Management can’t manage what they don’t know. A trite statement, true, but also the most basic question faced by executives in any type of organization.

resident

Well, I am sad to see that the homeless shelter has to stay in such a crowded, antiquated building. It seems the ducts have never been cleaned and people start coughing and sneezing when the blowers come on. However, the old building looked like a county prison in a state of disrepair.

The programs listed were great ideas. Several of us submitted other ideas, like having a psych nurse on hand once or twice a week and a regular nurse part time, getting money for (used) computers for job searches, real counseling rather than casework, etc.

However, I can understand the view of the people who live near the shelter- ing Kennedy housing- with little children there- and the Magnet School.

When my friends and I return to the Shelter for dinner, it is often a sad sight.
People we like and value (and some we do not) are passed out on the sidewalks.
Men are constantly urinating in the bushes on the corner of Merritt and Chestnut such that several trees have died. Children are privy to this as well.
There is quite a bit of swearing and some fighting going on some evenings.

I guess the entire question centers on what can be done to help the people in the shelter get out. Some need treatment. Some need D&A. Some are just out of a job and lost their home/apartment. We need programs in all these areas. Management- are they up to setting up these kinds of programs? I see the interest, and I see the frustration!
David Waters

I can’t allow your comment that information was not forthcoming to go unchallenged. The applicant was given a defined period of time to answer a couple of very specific questions, and we submitted responses. Your staff confirmed that we had done so. When asked, they also said that they felt the responses were satisfactory and that no further information was needed, obviously not speaking on behalf of the Commission but rather from their perspective. Maybe the applicant missed something, and so did your staff.

The applicant was asked to submit information as to what the “success rate” at the shelter is, and specifically what the average time that people stay there is. That was provided. The applicant was also asked to specify what other properties it owns, and how they are used. That was also provided.

On the specific question of what would be done with the existing shelter, we stated at the hearing that it would not continue to act as a shelter once the new one was completed and that we were willing to make that a condition of approval. The Commission, of course, could have crafted conditions to satisfy itself but chose not to do so.

What is truly telling is that at the Zoning Committee review on September 10, both Commissioners White and Bentley argued that they had not received requested information, but when Commisisoner Mushak asked them what specifically they had not received neither one of them could remember.

And TRAFFIC as a basis of denial???? Please.

It is indeed unfortunate that common ground could not be reached.

turfgrrl

David Waters: As you are aware, there were other questions raised that were left unanswered during the public hearing. The commission granted a continuance, as you point out, to respond to specific questions that were asked as a result of the incomplete answers provided by the executive director. We can certainly monday morning quarterback this, although I’m not so sure this is the appropriate venue for it, but we’ll still end up in the same place.

Winthrop Baum

The Norwalk Homeless Shelter, while a noble enterprise as a concept, in reality and at present, needs to take responsibility for the actions of its managers/advisers, and be a better citizen.

Just because the Shelter attempts laudable work, it is not entitled to a ‘pass’ when it fails in its mission. It clearly inflicts problems on its neighbors and host City.

The Shelter is spurning the goodwill of its neighbors by being boorish and self-centered. Perhaps if a wholesale change of management were made, the task of tending to those in need in a facility so suited would garner wider support. If only those now running the facility would recognize their gross errors, might there be a reconciliation of thought to make the Shelter truly serve those it is capable of serving. Only then will we have a successful Shelter. At present, we have a City blight on our hands. Not a resource, but a problem.

It’s not the Shelter that is being treated poorly by those charged with ordaining order. It is the Shelter itself acting badly by allowing the ills it attracts to manifest themselves.

There is simply no other way to frame this matter.

akabi

A belated thank you for posting this Mr. Baum.

parklover

Mr. Waters, this being an election year, and the mayor not wanting a controversial issue to cloud his chances at re-election, had as much to do with this as any other issue referred to. Politics rears its ugly head and the losers are the folks without a voice, the residents of the shelter who are crammed into an inadequate facility.

We can now look forward to more lie-driven mobs to show up at meetings to scare the hell out of the so-called decision makers. Welcome to Norwalk, Kydes-style.

The scary thing is the Dems in this town are just as myoptic as the Republicans, and forget about the “Independents” who blow whichever way the winds of expediency take them.
nancy colwell

Winthrop Baum wrote: “It is the Shelter itself acting badly by allowing the ills it attracts to manifest themselves”

Dear Mr Baum: We in the Shelter are not “ills”. We are real people who have been through many difficulties to end up in this setting. Yes, there are some “bad apples” among us, but that is because the NES takes all the people who are not permitted in other Shelters in the State.

Some of us have been searching for a decent job for 2 years, like me! Unfortunately the acceptances I’ve received don’t come with medical insurance. I need insurance due to some pretty serious problems. I am NOT on disability and I WANT to be working. I always owned my own home, worked, took care of my kids, pets, yard, etc. Deaths in the family and corrupt actions which followed led to my stay at NES.

Try walking a mile in a homeless person’s shoes…or come visit NES and volunteer. We are only human!

Winthrop Baum

Ms. Colwell:

The Shelter is designed to function as a support for those striving for improvement but, through circumsances of life, find themselves with no other means. For this reason, the Shelter does noble works, and if it did ONLY that, the community would heartily endorse and support that activity.

But the Shelter attempts to house those it simply isn’t equipped to handle. That is the reason for the 700+ police calls in one year. That is the reason why crime and neighborhood blight in the area occurs.

I’m sure, with your striving to improve your lot, you are not one of those who publicly urinate on the grounds or loiter in the area, or cause the police to be called. And for you, the Shelter provides.

When I was a volunteer, preparing food and serving it, I found the majority of those partaking of the community offering weren’t there because of true social need, they were there so that they could keep whatever money they did have for their next fix. This became quite obvious to me when, on my way home on my last visit, I was offered to buy sandwiches I had fixed not an hour earlier for those to take home for a dinner meal. I became disheartened observing this and felt I was part of the problem, by being an enabler to bad behavior. Not being a social worker, I felt it was not my place to suggest anything to anyone, only that I could no longer continue as a volunteer administering to folks who were gaming the system.

You bring up wonderful points to pursue. Those of us so inclined to help the Shelter in its mission need to make those running it aware of what is working…and what is not .

Nancy Colwell

Another impediment for us in the Shelter who want to work and move out is the cost of living in this area. Fairfield County is reportedly THE most expensive area to live in the entire country.

As such, I have been looking elsewhere, including other States. The drawback for me is the need for continuing medical care, and most positions I have found in my field do not offer insurance or make the cost prohibitive.

Sadly, I have found that the mainline staff in the Shelter make exactly what I made…in 1982. They need increased salaries and training. I have a Masters in Psychology. The staff should be encouraged to pursue their education and understanding of human nature.
parklover

Mr Baum,
Please stop repeating the mistruth, which was refuted both at the hearing and in newspaper articles and letters, that there were 700 police calls a year to the shelter. You were there and you heard the police explain how inaccurate that number was, based on over half of those being medical emergencies where the police are always called, and another significanat number based on criminals in other un-related arrests using the shelter address to avoid giving their real address, which triggers a visit to the shelter.
Why do you continue to use this number which you know is erroneous, since you were there to hear the explanation? Are you stilll trying to whip up hysteria based on lies, as you and Kydes did to scare residents?

You and Kydes owe the residents an apology, at the very least.
Of course that would assume that you are gentlemen who would admit they were lying when caught. Funny how people with such apparent character flaws feel so compelled to pass judgement on others including many shelter residents.

Winthrop Baum

Parklover:

By your own admission above, you’re saying that it is acceptable to have the police committed to ‘only’ 525 legitimate visits to the Shelter in a year and not the 700+ bona-fide police reports.

I would suggest we move the Shelter to another village for the trouble they cause our police department. Haven’t we had what would be any responsible person’s legal limit of fun with this entity already?

But that’s not our decision to make, of course. The fact that the Shelter taxes all of our resources to the degree it does, when is enough, truly enough?

Councilman Kydes has never singled out the residents for anything to apologize to. I commend Mr. Kydes for his rallying support for the Shelter, not in a way you may desire, but for the fact he brought the Shelter to our attention. With that attention, hopefully the Shelter’s management will see to corrective actions and improvements may at least and at last begin to take place.

Surely, you cannot abide a facility in town that absorbs so much of the City’s shrinking resources, not just of money and police time, but also the outpouring of goodwill that in many cases, goes for naught, from well-meaning patrons and volunteers.

Let’s use this opportunity to clean up the Shelter’s act, get them moving in the right direction by insisting they house only those they can truly help, get the State involved in helping those the Shelter can’t/shan’t be providing for, and make the Shelter stand up and be proud of its acheivements, not be horrified by the deluge of problems brought on by having this Shelter in our midst. Let the Shelter’s management be accountable to the City and help guide them to make good decisions that truly help those unfortunate souls that are truly in need, like Ms. Colwell.

Nancy Colwell

I really did not follow the ups and downs of the “new” shelter building. It just seemed to me to be in a difficult location for obtaining a zoning permit- next to a Housing complex with young children, with a Magnet School a little further down.
However, shelters and programs for the mentally ill/retarded are often vulnerable to the old “NIMBY” thinking. Where could the Shelter relocate and be accepted?
OLD TIMER

Wonder if Mr Baum thinks he might be qualified to decide who should be served by the shelter and who should be turned away ? Better yet, I wonder if he would take over that job for a few weeks, just to thin out the crowd and get rid of all the people who, in his words, are “gaming” the system. I hope he is never in a desperate state of mind where selling his lunch for a little money for drugs seems like a good idea. No question, there are folks gaming the system. Folks who eat one meal (?) a day, for free, at the shelter, but manage to scrape together enough money for cigarettes, liquor, or drugs, but not for a place to stay indoors at night. What should we superior beings, led by Mr Baum, do with these undeserving people ??? Judging them, from any perspective, is clearly not the answer. They need help, desperately. Most will resist any effort at help. Until the Mr Baums of our community have to deal with that level of mental illness in a loved one, they are not qualified to judge the clients at the shelter. Mr Baum has already explained his excuse to stop helping.
BLARNEY

On the lighter side, years ago I was walking down the Atlantic City Boardwalk, one summer evening, and the board walk was full of pan handlers, asking for a quarter, a buck or spare change. I usually walked by them as I recognized them all. One evening after losing a nice piece of change at the poker tables, a shabby guy walked up to me and said “Excuse me sir, can you spare $400 so I can buy myself a bottle of Dom P�rignon 39 ?” I looked at him and started to walk away when I started to laugh out loud at what he said to me. I turned around called out to him to come back. I said to him ” Here is a 20 dollar bill for giving me the first good laugh I had all day.” We both stood there and laughed together for a few seconds.
OLD TIMER

To put Mr Baum’s numbers in perspective, 700 police calls in one year is just a little more then the average work load of 650 calls for one patrol officer, according to the figures in the current police dept budget. Keeping in mind that the shelter never closes, and many of the calls showing the shelter adress have nothing to do with the shelter, that is not as astonishing a number as he would have us believe. A surprizing number of people call the police from the payphone near the shelter and give the shelter as their location when the call has nothing to do with the shelter, except as a landmark where they can be contacted, on the street corner, by the assigned officer.