By: Diane Benjamin
I took the weekend off to spend time with with family and friends. I’m back!
Agenda for Bloomington tonight: https://d3n9y02raazwpg.cloudfront.net/cityblm/3fbd5444-814f-4e17-a65f-83fbc20272bb-d854eb82-3702-4140-9de6-ac3a8e3f379d-1746819050.pdf
Two items on the Consent Agenda caught my eye:
Item H – The Ecology Action Center is requesting that the City pay a total of $166,342.97 for the three-year Energy Efficiency Program.
EAC supports the 40% increase in electricity rates those who don’t opt out will be facing. If paying rent is a problem, it’s about to get a lot harder. This looks a lot more like a make-work job for friends of government than an organization benefiting the people paying the bills. (prove me wrong)
Item I – The downtown streetscape bid came in much higher than expected. Therefore staff wants the ability to negotiate a better deal with Stark – the only bidder. Decades of revitalization downtown has accomplished government buildings and some restaurants while businesses continue to close.
On the Regular agenda is this:
.
Citizens haven’t been told the real story about this project. Read this story about Micro-Communities in Denver: https://denvergazette.com/news/denver-homeless-village-911-calls-crime/article_4c2f35a8-714e-11ef-a8ad-fb8937d29b8c.html
Pictured in that story is likely what the “cabins” will look like. The stated goal is to provide safety and transitional housing opportunities. Is that what is happening in Denver? The story is dated March of 2025. Denver has 3 micro-communities.
Quotes:
One “micro-community” saw nearly 2,000 emergency 911 calls over an eight-month period.
Some advocates blamed Colorado’s “affordable housing crisis” for the fact that fewer people have successfully transitioned out of the “micro-communities.” Others have long maintained that substance abuse and mental illnesses are the root causes of homelessness and unless the Johnston administration focuses on tackling them, his strategies will fail.
Since it opened in mid-March through the end of August, 75 homeless people have lived there. Out of that number, only three exited for some type of housing, according to the Collaborative.
Currently, 109 homeless people live in all three micro-communities.
All told, the city has transitioned 28 people from the “micro-communities” to “permanent” housing since the first one opened on Dec. 31, according to Denver’s Department of Housing Stability.
The city is on track to spend nearly $155 million on the mayor’s homelessness campaign — $65 million more than anticipated — even as the total number of homeless people in the city actually ballooned from 5,818 last year to 6,539 this year.
And the city saw only 150 fewer “unsheltered” people — individuals who sleep in public places, such as parks and in cars — compared to the previous year’s count.
Another story from Denver: https://gazette.com/opinion/column-denver-micro-community-a-nightmare-for-dwayne-peterson-jimmy-sengenberger/article_fae3de2e-b62c-11ee-9f3b-27c072f3614e.html#google_vignette
The City of Denver owns their micro-communities, luckily they won’t in Bloomington. That doesn’t mean in the future taxpayer money won’t be required to operate the one proposed. This story centers on a homeless man without drug, alcohol, or mental health issues. He left a shelter to live on the streets because he felt safer in below zero temperatures than in a tiny house shelter.
Excepts:
Yet, as Peterson observed, the city paradoxically funnels them into micro-communities without ensuring their underlying issues are addressed or implementing any screening measures or sobriety requirements.
“I think there’s a lot of enabling going on,” he said.
Let’s be real: Simply making “wraparound” services available (mental-health care, workforce training, substance abuse treatment, etc.) isn’t sufficient. By clustering diverse populations with complex needs at an unprecedented clip, the city generates potentially unsafe environments — allowing a volatile mix of individuals to coexist without definitively addressing underlying causes.
The “cabins” Home Sweet Home Ministers plans to build for the homeless won’t move anyone to permanent housing if residents are enabled to continue destructive behavior.
I hope aldermen have done their own research instead of swallowing talking points. Since “feel good” is easier, I doubt they have.
If Normal is now shipping their homeless to Bloomington, how much are they paying to help house them?
On the Micro communities –
People who prioritize being seen as virtuous without common sense create chaos. Focusing on perceived goodness rather than practical outcomes, often leaves a trail of unintended destruction.
How many times will society have to endure their moral failures?
Screw the ecology action center. I’m tired of my taxes going up.
Great information on the micro communities and how effective they may/may not be. It is essential that other attempts at this be studied before proceeding with throwing money at something that is destined to fail because it’s not done right. Tough questions need to be asked of our local feel good brainiacs before rubber stamping anything. Just putting up the “cabins” by themselves won’t solve anything in my opinion.
The majority of this council doesn’t consider anything but feelings. Get popcorn ready.
Sad but very true I’m afraid
If you are going to set up a community you had better have clear guidelines and enforcement policies.
Brady just got himself voted into “Circus Ringmaster” position. Let the show begin!
Brady did well tonight.
A Welcoming City with a free housing micro community – What could possibly go wrong?
This will become another financial drain on local taxpayers that are already cutting back to pay their taxes. Once it is set up we will be shamed and blamed into continuously pumping money into its repair and probably its expansion.