Letter to Idaho Senate State Affairs Committee

Support Senate Bill 1166

My name is Rory Hester. I am 22-year retired veteran of the USAF and a Field Engineer who travels around the United States working on power plants, and a proud resident of Idaho.

I am writing to express my support for Senate Bill 1166 which would provide for a 300 foot buffer zone between homeless shelters and personal residences. It seems sort of silly that a bill like this is needed when it's easy to look around the country for numerous examples of the problems when shelters for the homeless are placed in residential areas in other States. We only have to look around River Street in Boise to see what sort of chronic problems shelters bring, and to put this into a residential neighborhood is nothing short of cruel.

Ironically, the 300 foot barrier buffer zone was one of the recommendations made by Clarion, a consulting firm out of Denver, hired by the City of Boise to advise on their own zoning code rewrite. It astounds me that the City of Boise would choose to ignore best practices and recommendations that they paid for.

This was after they illegally overruled their own Planning and Commissioning committee which pointed out the numerous problems with putting homeless shelters next to residential neighborhoods. Even after the Idaho Supreme Court ruled against them, they are still attempting to change the rules to give themselves the permanent ability to overrule their own P&Z department. Which makes me question why they even have one, if they are going to ignore all its decisions anyway. Why shouldn't 5 people have the power to do whatever they want regardless of the rules.

I sincerely believe this is because City Councils think it's easier to place shelters into working class neighborhoods far away from their precious amenities downtown. Politicians in the North End don't need to drive down State Street to get downtown. The places where they want to put shelters are inevitably populated by normal hard working citizens who don't donate to their campaigns. Their kids won't go to the Collister Library or go to Taft Elementary school. They won't have to deal with pan handlers and public intoxication and urination and drug use in front of their houses.

But this bill wouldn't just help the citizens of Boise, it would help prevent the same thing happening in Meridan, Eagle, Nampa, Twin Falls, and all the other cities of Idaho. It's easy to support good causes when they don't affect you personally, but without this legislation there is nothing preventing random shelter placements anywhere in Idaho.

Because I spend so much time traveling for work all across our country, I am blessed to see first hand how lucky I am to live in Idaho where we don't have to deal with the same homeless and drug problems that exist across the country, but only if the Idaho State legislature prevents Cities from making the same mistakes that Seattle, San Francisco, New York and endless other places have made.

I urge you, the esteemed members of the State Affairs Committee to quickly approve SB 1166 and put it forward to the legislature for approval before Boise and other cities follow the route of self-destruction we see in other places.

Rory Hester

USAF (Retired)