Collister Neighborhood Association Council has decided to put the decision on whether to take an official position up to the neighborhood directly.
Collister residents can find information on the CNA Facebook Page or their website.
I am a resident of the CNA I urge all my fellow residents to attend the meeting and to take the opportunity to vote regardless of what side they are on.
My position is that the City of Boise needs to step in and lead. I do not believe that the City has adequately followed through on its Housing First initiative. This is where I think the City and private organizations should be investing their resources. The propose IFS emergency shelters current proposal will shelter almost 300 people in a warehouse. Every single one of them will still be considered homeless. IFS has a poor record of moving people to permanent housing.
My goal is to convince IFS and the City to pivot to turning the Salvation Army site into affordable housing or supportive housing that will actually prevent or reduce homelessness instead of just managing it.
Interfaith Sanctuary has a robust job training, counseling, and recovery programs that I believe would be enormously beneficial if they could serve people after they had been housed.
This would be a win-win scenario.
Regardless of what happens, homelessness and affordable housing is an important issue. IFS only exists because we have dropped the ball on preventing homelessness, providing affordable housing, not funding mental healthcare, and not doing enough to prevent the ravages of substance abuse.
Even after this issue is decided, we need to hold ourselves and our elected officials accountable. Are they going to continue with bandaids, or are we going to come up with actual solutions.
If you are involved in the fight against the Sanctuary, here is a link to a site that will give you information that you will find nowhere else. Please donate to the site if you find it helps. The author is taking a great risk exposing the shady dealings of the agency through the series.
https://notmyheaven.com/
Rory, thank you for your leadership on this. I agree with your position that the City needs to get on this and lead. Very good points made. Turning the proposed site into affordable or supportive housing, along with IFS helping with training and counseling is way more responsible for our city.