By Walter Pryce
This is an opinion column. It reflects the views of the writer.
Erie County is doing the right thing on South Park Avenue. Its lease on the former Buffalo Creek Academy, 514 to 528 South Park Ave., began Nov. 1, and the building is set to become a winter shelter with room for up to 200 people. A county that has watched people freeze in a blizzard should not be scrambling every fall for a place to put a cot.
But the county has asked the public to accept a bigger and more expensive program than the one it described, and it has done so while telling the neighbors their city government does not count. Both of those problems can be fixed this month.
The need is real
Start with what nobody seriously disputes. County Executive Mark Poloncarz put it plainly to WKBW: “We need it, it’s as simple as that… when people are homeless you gotta help them.”
Erie Tower, a special assistant commissioner at the Department of Social Services, told legislators that Code Blue sites have moved from year to year depending on what nonprofit providers could find that was zoned and permitted. “Approving this lease will stabilize the Code Blue program by enabling the county to secure a permanent facility that we can bring a provider into,” he said. On crowding at the existing site, he added, “So when we’re seeing regularly above 150, it’s a huge burden.”
Tower also made the best case for the whole idea: “The entire point of having Code Blue is to not just get people off the streets, but to stabilize them so that we can get them off the streets permanently.” That is the right goal, and a permanent building serves it better than a new address every winter.
The program that was described, and the one that was bid
Here is the problem. The lease came to the Legislature described as a Code Blue site, the kind of shelter that opens on the coldest nights. Legislators approved it unanimously. Rent is $455,000 a year for the first five years, and Tower put the cost from November through April at about $1.8 million for the lease, a provider and insurance, according to The Buffalo News.
The county’s own request for proposals for an operator says something different. “This year services will operate 24/7 regardless of temperature,” it states, from on or about Nov. 1 through April 30. It also says the state Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance reimburses only nights that meet Code Blue criteria, and that “Local funds will cover the costs of days and nights above 32 degrees.” The RFP lists $1,085,000 in available funding for the operator, paid per service and invoiced monthly, and an Oct. 15 addendum raised the compensation. As the Chronicle reported Monday, the county has not said how many of those warm nights it expects to pay for on its own.
Running around the clock may well be the better policy. People do not stop being homeless at 33 degrees, and a shelter that empties every morning makes it harder to do the stabilizing work Tower described. But it is a different program, with a different local bill, and taxpayers and legislators deserve to see that number before the operator contract is signed this month.
“The city doesn’t matter” is the wrong message
The second problem is tone, and it has consequences. “The interesting thing is the city doesn’t matter,” Poloncarz told WKBW. “The county has the ability to do this without going through the city.” He added that the county is “not gonna let some ‘NIMBYism’, which you often see, prevent us from building what is necessary.”
He may be right on the law. The county’s state environmental review memo classifying the project as needing no further review was signed Oct. 7, one day after a county letter inviting the city into a coordinated review. But being legally able to skip a conversation is not a reason to skip it.
And the objection here is not the usual “not in my backyard.” Council Member Leah Halton-Pope, who represents the Ellicott District, has been clear. “Do we need a Code Blue shelter? 100% we do,” she told WKBW. “But where we put these things really matters.” To WBEN, she said: “I’m not opposed to a Code Blue shelter, and helping those experiencing homelessness. My concern is that the location is directly across the street from the Perry Homes and we have to consider the impact on existing residents.”
That is a reasonable request from an elected official speaking up for public housing residents. Calling it NIMBYism does nothing to make the shelter safer or the neighbors more willing to live beside it.
The strongest case for moving fast
The county’s defenders will say winter does not wait for community meetings, that every shelter site draws opposition, and that years of hunting for a building each fall is exactly what this lease ends. They are right about all three. Nobody should want this shelter delayed.
But nothing asked of the county here would delay it. Publishing a cost estimate takes a spreadsheet. Holding a meeting at the Perry Homes takes an evening. Neither stops the doors from opening.
What should happen now
Poloncarz and the Department of Social Services should publish their estimate of the local cost of keeping the shelter open on nights the state will not reimburse, before the operator contract is signed.
The county should hold the community meeting Halton-Pope asked for, at or near the Perry Homes, with the chosen operator in the room to explain security, staffing and how guests will come and go.
The Erie County Legislature should require monthly reports on nightly occupancy, warm-night costs and how many guests move into housing, so the program can be judged on Tower’s own goal of getting people off the streets permanently.
And the county executive should retire the line that the city does not matter. A shelter works best when the people next door have a reason to want it to succeed. If you live in the Ellicott or Fillmore districts, call your county legislator and Council member this week and ask for both the cost estimate and the meeting date.
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