Boise City Council approval of Interfaith Sanctuary homeless shelter was the right call

The Boise City Council did the difficult but right thing Tuesday night. In spite of sustained, vocal opposition to Interfaith Sanctuary’s proposed State Street location from many neighbors, a 4-2 majority of the council voted to overrule the city’s planning commission, and allow the project to move forward with additional conditions.

Council Members Luci Willits and Patrick Bageant opposed the move. Both felt that even with additional conditions recommended by city staff, adverse impacts to the neighborhood could not be adequately mitigated.

But council member Jimmy Hallyburton consistently raised the correct objection: Anywhere a homeless shelter is sited, it will have adverse impacts on neighbors to some degree. If it cannot be placed on State Street, it could not be placed anywhere in the city.

And Council President Pro Tem Holli Woodings appeared always to be looking for concrete ways to solve the problem raised by neighbors, to find a solution that would have minimal impact on the area.

Particular thanks are due to council president Elaine Clegg, who seemed the most skeptical of the members who voted in favor of the project. Late into the hearing, most observers would have picked her for a “no” vote. But she found a set of conditions that could be added to the shelter’s permit that were enough to get her to “yes.”

And with rents skyrocketing and more families in need of shelter, the city needs Interfaith Sanctuary. The alternative, as the ruling in Martin v. Boise spells out, is likely an inability to enforce bans on homeless encampments in city parks and on city sidewalks. People need to sleep somewhere — that’s not a matter of law but of biological fact.

The approval comes with limitations. Interfaith Sanctuary will not be able to operate overflow capacity, so it will be limited to a bit over 200 beds. A report on the shelter will be produced six months after it opens.

Many of those limitations were the direct result of issues brought forward by neighbors before the planning and zoning commission and the council. Their testimony led to a better solution more closely crafted to the neighborhood.

But the limitations on overflow mean there is more hard work to do, and fast. It’s likely the city will need more shelter space quickly. Hopefully, the City Council has developed a set of conditions that will allow more shelter capacity to be added to the city without so protracted a fight.

Council Member Lisa Sanchez correctly diagnosed the impulse at the heart of neighborhood opposition to every shelter that has ever opened anywhere: people consider poverty unseemly. We often don’t want to be forced to acknowledge its existence. We know it is a problem, but we hope it can be solved somewhere else.

It is always hard to do because the difficulties associated with a homeless shelter are real. The Boise City Council did the right thing because it said: Nonetheless, we will do it here, and now.

The ball is now in Interfaith Sanctuary’s court. The council has made clear that it could revisit the permit in coming months and years, so the shelter will have to prove it is capable of running a smooth operation. Though there will certainly be hiccups, we believe it will.