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Downtown Peoria housing for families experiencing homelessness gets council's approval

UnityPoint is considering the sale of the former Methodist College of Nursing building, 415 St Marks Ct. in Peoria, to Phoenix Community Development Services, which plans to convert it into 55 permanent supportive housing units for people experiencing homelessness.
Tim Shelley
/
WCBU
UnityPoint is considering the sale of the former Methodist College of Nursing building, 415 St Marks Ct. in Peoria, to Phoenix Community Development Services, which plans to convert it into 55 permanent supportive housing units for people experiencing homelessness.

Peoria City Council members are giving the green light for the former Methodist College building to be converted into 55 units of housing for families experiencing homelessness.

President and Chief Executive Officer of Phoenix Community Development Services Christine Kahl said UnityPoint Health’s potential transition to Carle Health would not affect the project. Kahl cites a purchase agreement on the property and a UnityPoint representative later concurred, saying it was locally owned by Methodist.

“I do want to clarify one point is that in the notes of the Planning and Zoning Commission it said that we said it would end homelessness… what we said is it’ll end family homelessness,” Kahl told council members Tuesday night. “ The majority of these units are one…two…three-bedroom apartments for family use.”

She said it would eliminate the current waiting list of families on the Continuum of Care master wait list. The property will share the same access of services offered at other permanent supportive housing units.

“However, the residents of the property are lease-holders, they’re protected by landlord-tenant law, and they also have the right to decline service participation,” Kahl said. “That can not be a condition of them living there since they’re lease-holders.”

First District council member Denise Jackson said if the project was directly in her neighborhood she’d support it. Jackson highlighted in her remarks the number of veterans in Peoria who struggle with homelessness.

“I do know there has been a tremendous need for housing. Not only for homeless vets but for homeless individuals and families,” Jackson said. “I think that as people are impacted in ways we are not always aware of we have to be considerate, we have to be compassionate and do whatever we can to make sure that their basic needs of food and shelter are provided.”

Fourth District council member Andre Allen, citing public differences regarding the project had a couple of questions including the population demographics and if sex offenders will gain access to housing.

Kahl, in response to Allen’s inquiry, said the demographics are driven by the federal department of Housing and Urban Development’s homelessness definition.

“Under that law, the status of homelessness is defined and the local Continuums of Care, which is currently housed under the United Way, is the entity responsible for managing a centralized waitlist,” Kahl told Allen.

Phoenix does not handle the waitlist directly. Though, once individuals or families meet the federal definition and are on the waitlist they are then selected for housing. The order of approval is based on a few factors.

“The order in which they are on there is driven by the vulnerability, so how likely are they to die if they stay on the streets and their service needs define the order,” Kahl said. She went on to answer Allen’s second question that no registered sex offender is able to live in the proposed development.

At-large council member John Kelly supports the Phoenix Community Development Services in this project but said he is not confident the city is addressing the issue efficiently.

“We keep doing things like this. I don’t remember when public housing began, but public housing began as a very temporary way to help people out who kind of hit the skids for the moment and bring them on their way,” Kelly said to colleagues. “The system itself encouraged people to stay and stay and stay…and now we have a partial population that doesn’t know anything else.” Kelly is skeptical of measures focusing on the “warehousing of people,” especially in downtown Peoria.

Mayor Rita Ali says Kahl and others can provide countless examples of where measures have worked.

“Where you wrap supportive services around these individuals. You help them to get employed, you help them to retain their jobs, and provide mentoring and support,” Ali said.

Council member Beth Jensen, also at-large, supported the measure and would like the council to invite Kahl back to speak about Phoenix’s current services. At-large council members Sid Ruckriegel and Timothy Riggenbach, of the Third District, agreed with Jensen.

The council approved the development nearly unanimously.

Allen abstained from the vote citing his employee status at the Methodist College of UnityPoint Health, but voiced his support.

Brady started as WCBU's Audio Operations Coordinator in 2022. Brady is a member of the Society of Broadcast Engineers.