In October, the Greensboro City Council committed to trying out several new initiatives to provide housing for the homeless population during the winter months.
At a special meeting held on Oct. 10, the City Council passed a resolution to move forward with both the Doorway Project to provide 40 Pallet shelters and the Safe Parking initiative.
There was no funding passed for the Safe Parking initiative at that meeting and no location for either project was revealed.
Although no official announcement of the location of the Pallet shelters or the Safe Parking initiative has been made, Mayor Nancy Vaughan said that both the Pallet shelter village and the Safe Parking initiative would be at 3910 Clifton Road, the site of the former Folk Teen Center next to Pomona Park.
According to the staff presentation, the Safe Parking initiative will provide “the establishment of a safe and secure location for unhoused persons who may be forced to sleep temporarily in their vehicles. The site would be staffed in the evening hours as participants arrive and security would be provided overnight. Portable toilets or a mobile bathroom and shower unit would be placed on site overnight.”
According to the presentation to the City Council, a maximum of 35 vehicles will be allowed in the Safe Parking lot, which will operate from 7 p.m. to 6 a.m. The City Council discussed whether 6 a.m. was too early to require people to remove their cars from the lot.
When approval of the Safe Parking program was passed by the City Council in October, there was no allocation for the program or discussion of the possible cost of providing a secure parking lot for people living in their cars.
However, at the Nov. 15 meeting, the City Council approved a contract with the Interactive Resource Center (IRC) for $484,000 for the Doorway Project, Safe Parking, winter hotel housing and White Flag shelter openings.
A couple who spoke during the public forum period of the Dec. 6 meeting said they lived in their car and talked about the difficulty of finding a place to legally park in downtown Greensboro.
The location at 3910 Clifton Road is not in the downtown area but will provide a secure location for people living in their cars to park overnight.
Next time the Council wants to make a homeless camp, why don’t they pick on the Lake Jeanette areas and North Greensboro. Let them share in the enjoyment.
Nice to know that when retirees like my wife and I have to move out of our homes because of outrageous tax increases and rampant inflation we’ll have a place to park our “live-in” car. It shouldn’t be too long either since Joe Bidet has said he’s raising taxes on us as well.
If you recall, Trump increased taxes on middle class (after giving a very small temporary tax cut first) while giving his rich friends a permanent tax cut. Funny how conservatives gave the republicans such an easy pass on that obvious move.
Oh good good good I’m so glad it’s away from Center City Park, the almighty Tanger center and his majesty Carrolls pent house condo. Good job council crap.
Unbelievable. There is nothing that can be said about this debacle but “pure loonacy”.
Mandate Mayor reigns over relocation of homeless population to prevent Performance Arts Palace guests and bougie drunkards trapezing thru DGI “special district” from seeing what reality is in our pseudo liberal crumbling midsized city.
Next will be forced hospitalization of non violent homeless like being proposed in NY city. Forcing the least fortunate into ramshackle portable closets in a fenced in ghetto is not a tenable solution. How about spending some of the money that flows to council member led nonprofits and spending on projects outside of our city led by big time donors and sycophants to actually provide services like for example opening public restrooms downtown 24 hours, not harassing folks feeding the least among us, or requiring the notfor profit but extremely well endowed medical systems in town to step up instead of just building their chest of barely taxed multi millions.
What about Challenger Baseball that’s held at that location? It seems like they could put the pallet shelters somewhere else. There’s plenty of vacant buildings and property the Mayor could use instead of where the adaptive sports league meet.
The shelters are only during winter. It won’t effect the Challenger league.
Will buses from downtown to this site be available?
I think that there will be limos waiting for when they get out of bed each morning. Properly have meals catered for each meal too.
I lived across from this park until recently. There is a very convenient bus stop there.
Someone record the current crime statistics for that area then look at it again in 6 and 12 months. It would be an interesting study.
I still waiting to hear about the site plan that should have been sent to the Gso. Planning dept or the permitting for the electrical inspections as well as the mechanical for the plumbing,water and sewer and the fire marshal’s inspection of these units. They appear to only have one way in and out also with the door opening out there is a danger of the occupants being trapped inside by someone on the outside. Since the city is going to provide and own these units I really see a lot of legal responsibility for the city. Can our esteemed living out of Gso. Attorney answer some of these questions and concerns
How about a few food trucks??
Park them at City Hall.
I guess GSO will be going the way of Seattle, San Francisco, Portland, Los Angeles, Chicago, Baltimore…on and on. Govt, especially Dems, create poverty to control people. Not give them opportunities to get ahead and be self sufficient!
Amen brother
Greensboro IS “Little Portland”, or “Big Sedalia”. The Land of Opportunity is still here, but most can’t or won’t cut it.
I would love to sit down and discuss intelligently with some of these people that are leaving derogatory , negative comments about this that and the other. And I hope you never have to experienced it. I haven’t even moved into place yet and I don’t like the way it’s being run. I just got approved to Dan I’m waiting for them to let me into place I didn’t know it was a prison when I first asked about it. It’s not like we’ll be staying in Trump towers.
And it’s becoming more and more of problem all across the country in the senior citizen age group. You know retire at 62 to enjoy life a little bit after busted your ass your whole life just so you can become homeless.
You have no idea how many job applications I filled out since I’ve been homeless. And what I went through with disability. Which by the way I only got a partial rating which means they kept my back pay I get no check from the federal disability administration but it deemed me to be a burden on the states resources. So why you’re making your derogatory and negative comments about everything maybe you should get out here and speak to a real individual that actually wants to work. I really didn’t want to move out of my house and leave my wife at the age of 62 on April 15th 2022 just to become homeless. But I had to for my own mental and emotional stability. And now it’s a fight, everything I do is a fight, everything. It’s all hers even the five cats that I rescued and interacted with for 10 or so years. Everywhere I’ve gone for the last one year and 7 months I’m trespassing. Greensboro Police department have rousted me in the middle of the night, giving me ticket for trespassing in the parking lot of Hester Park by the tennis courts witch are open 24 hours a day you can come in at 3:00 in the morning and turn the lights on and play tennis if you want to but I get a trespassing ticket. you people sitting back making a comments have no idea what people go through out here should be ashamed of yourselfs.