Who looks after Lincoln City’s “unvetted” homeless population?
Who looks after Lincoln City’s “unvetted” homeless population?
Although I genuinely support any well-intentioned attempt the city takes in acknowledging its responsibility to provide shelter of any kind for its homeless population, I can’t help but note the huge difference between the support that the city recently gave to the Helping Hands non-profit ($750,000 up front!) in its mission to provide “transitional housing,” primarily for the City’s “vetted” homeless – compared to the support the City reluctantly allocated over the years to the now dissolved Lincoln City Emergency Warming Shelter (LCWS) non-profit, which primarily served the “unvetted” homeless.
From its inception, LCWS was both underfunded and legally encumbered by the city, both before and after it briefly occupied the old Taft Fire House, which the city forced it to vacate, leaving LCWS with the only option to merge with the newly established, north Lincoln City C.H.A.N.C.E. non-profit, which (even though it primarily serves the “vetted” homeless) the city eventually hamstrung legally, once again leaving a significant portion of the City’s homeless problem (mostly “unvetted”) to our churches to solve this winter.
In that regard, a big “Thank You!” is due from our community to the First Baptist Church and its neighbors!
Jay Roelof, Lincoln City
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