City Council - Special Meeting

Okay, good evening. Thank you all for being here today. We have a quorum of council here in our special meeting regarding our quality of life and public safety issues regarding the Miller Street and Meadow Street areas. It is now 6.02. Okay. Just some housekeeping. If you have to use the restroom, the restrooms, you can walk around the other side of the building and the doors are unlocked. Okay, we also have waters. We know it's hot out here. As a council here, we'd like to thank each and every one of you for being here today to address these community concerns. And we really genuinely want to hear from you. today the only real action that we're going to be taking is to give some advice to our administration and how to handle the next steps okay there is no no necessary authority that's going to come from this council meeting today the goal of this meeting is to hear from you is to then give direction to our city staff. Okay. Which some of the things hopefully we can bring up next Tuesday or a meeting following after that. This is a directional meeting pretty much only. Okay. So with that said, I do want due to the nature of this meeting and it being a special meeting, I would like to give every council member up here an opportunity to at least address the issues or the things that they would like to see handled tonight. Starting with Miss Anthony, please.

Good afternoon. I'm Saluda Anthony, Mayor Pro Tem. As the Mayor stated, we're here today not to necessarily find solutions, but to give people the opportunity to share their thoughts about homelessness, particularly in the area of Miller Street and the loss. No decisions will be made today, but we are interested since this is a actually is a national concern. It's a national public safety health crisis. I'll say more later.

Um, council member, Frank McGee here. First of all, I would like to thank everybody for attending, um, and bearing this heat, um, sort of warm out here, but I do appreciate your. Um, interest and wanting to come together and discuss, um, like councilwoman, um, Anthony said, this is a national epidemic, homelessness and unsheltered population is something that Monroe is not dealing with solely, but it's a union County, um, that is issue. It is a all municipality issue and what I would like to see done is get more people to the table. The community shelter is in Monroe but it's not solely a Monroe issue and I would like to see where all municipalities come to the table including our county commissioners to have a discussion to see how we can mitigate this problem as a collective to see how we can help our unpopular, our unsheltered

and homeless community in Union County.

So thank you guys for coming. Look forward to the discussions. My email is fmcgee at 10nc.org. If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to email me and I will respond back accordingly. So thank you.

Good evening. I'm Councilwoman Julie Thompson. Thank you all for coming out. I look forward to the collaboration between all of the interested parties regarding this issue, and hopefully we can give some directives as we come out of the meeting that are helpful to everyone. That's what I'm looking for, is working together and listening to one another. Thank you.

Good evening. I appreciate everyone being here. Uh, like has been stated before the heat, um, we appreciate everyone's concern. It's obvious that this is an important matter for each one of you and for us as well, but the meeting is more to hear from you than from us. So I do appreciate you being here. Thank you.

Good evening, James Carr. I reiterate the welcome from all my fellow council members. We appreciate you being here at the end of a busy day. And I want to take a moment for each of us to thank the police and fire that you see here. They are an integral part of this safety issue. And without their assistance, none of us would have the quality of life that we have. So can we give a round of applause? And I also look forward to the discussion. I don't know that we'll have all the solutions, but this conversation, these conversations, I hope will be the foundation blocks for finding some solutions. Thank you again for being here.

Okay. Thank you, council. So this time what we're going to get into directly is our public comment period. Currently at this time, there are 21 individuals who have signed up. Okay, council, that is three minutes, so that's roughly an hour of comments. Okay. All right. This is very important to us. We want to hear from you. We are grateful that you are here today, that you are coming to speak. Hopefully, we will also be able to address some of these issues, as we've said earlier. We'll be able to address these issues next week. This public comment period is specifically designed to give every one of you guys input into specifically those quality of life issues that we're talking about in the area. So hopefully that is exactly what your comments are directed towards. However, we do believe in freedom of speech here. So that said, we're going to just go down in a list. Instead of going through Monroe and then Union County like before, we're going to give each and every one of you three minutes, okay? That is a time we ask that you adhere to those three minutes. Please refrain from using any foul language. But we do want to, like I said, address these concerns. We're going to go all the way through however in which the order everyone signed up. So that said, please come to the podium. You may state your name. You do not have to state your address. You can tell us where you're at least from at least and speak clearly into the mic. First up, Chelsea Lee. And also, by the way, your time will be set here, and you'll be able to see, okay?

Okay. Is it starting? Whenever you're ready. Yes, ma'am. Okay. All right. Sorry. Good evening. My name is Chelsea Lee, and I'm a current resident of the shelter. I want to start off by thanking this community for showing up and allowing our voices to be heard. Tonight, I want to acknowledge that I am taking time off of work to be here because this issue matters to much... That much to my family's future. I hear the concerns and frustrations coming from the neighborhood, and I completely validate the need for enforcement, order, and accountability. I want to address the conversations happening right now about closing our doors, and I want to do it by sharing what actually happens inside them. There is a misconception that places like this are just handouts. Let me be clear. Nothing about my journey here is a handout. I came into this shelter seeking refuge from domestic violence and with a single unshakable goal. With the guidance of my caseworkers and the support of my community, I rolled up my sleeves and I am doing the heavy lifting each and every single day. I am learning how to prioritize, how to navigate the obstacles in front of me, and how to put the hard work required to rebuild my life. And that work is paying off. Because of the stability and services the shelter provides as a foundation, I am currently on the path to achieve what matters most to me, and that is securing full custody of my son and being able to provide him with a safe, secure home like he deserves. When you talk about shutting down a shelter, you aren't just talking about a building or a property line. You are talking about closing the door on parents who are fighting to keep their children and family members safe. You are cutting off the exact stepping stone that allows people to get back on their feet, find employment, and become contributing members of this community. The answer to the neighborhood challenge isn't destruction. It's collaboration. Let's work together to support the systems that help families heal rather than tearing down the very place that is giving me and my son a future. Thank you.

Mary Garza. Yes, sir, you can.

I just want to correct the record. I don't believe anybody on this council has talked about shutting down the shelter. I don't think that's what we're here to discuss. So I want to make sure that we're very clear on that. We're here to discuss the quality of life issues, quality of life issues, not shutting down the shelter. So I want to make sure that there is a definite no to that, that you understand that we're not here to do that. That's right. All right. Thank you.

Hi there, my name is Mary Garceau and I am the founder of Davis Advocacy for the Homeless here in Union County. I work with everybody that lives on shelter and everybody that lives outside. I'm more here to be their voice just in case they don't want to come up here, but our friends, I have over 30,000 hours on the streets here of Union County. Our friends are not here because they want to be. They are here because of circumstances. We have gotten, with a collaboration with the shelter, we have gotten over 45 friends off the streets. I've won over 24 disability cases. The list goes on and on. Our friends do not want to live outside. They want a place to live. They want a place to succeed. Unfortunately, with our society, houselessness across the board, as you guys mentioned, is the number one cause of homelessness in the United States. Lack of affordable housing is the biggest cause of our friends being on the streets. The 24 cases of disability that I won, most of our friends only get SSI. That's $997 a month. There is no way that they can afford to have a roof over their head, pay for their medical bills, pay for their transportation and things like that. Um, I do understand, excuse me. I do understand the, the, um, concern of our friends being outside of the shelter and being on Miller street and being around here, but there is no other place for them to go. This is where their resources are. The shelter helps them tremendously. I help them tremendously and they have a voice. They are humans and they are, they are here because they have struggled for whatever the reason may be. Um, We are put on this earth to help people, not to put them down. And unfortunately, I see it day in and day out of my friends being talked down to. I see their tents being destroyed. I see things happening that other people do not see. I hear their voices. I hear them crying because there's nowhere for them to go. The shelter, our shelter is the only shelter, one of the only shelters here in North Carolina that offers a 90-day program and sometimes even longer. They offer cooling stations. They offer warming stations. Most shelters in North Carolina and a lot of other places only give you a night stay. Then you have to leave. Then you can come back and hope that you have a bed to stay in. Our shelter is in collaboration with myself and other organizations to bring our friends together to give them the resources that they need to be able to succeed in whatever that looks like for them. The biggest thing I say is Go find out their names. Go find out why they're out there. Just talk to them and I promise you, you will find a whole different outlook on why friends are actually out here on the streets and why they're struggling. And I have a lot more, but I'm gonna stop there. Thank you.

John Terry. Hello. Um, I've lived here since I was 14 and I'm not born here. I was born, should have been born in Charlotte, but my mother went to Alabama to have me born and come back to North Carolina and I wasn't raised around people. I've never really been fit in anywhere and I've worked my whole life here ever since I was 18. Um, and now I'm about to achieve high school equivalents at 50. Yeah, I'm really picky. everybody was like oh you're actually smart i thought it was rather obvious but i wouldn't have been able to do this without time to sit down and recover think and somebody actually oh wait a minute he can do that and allow me to sign up for high school equivalents and me get there and i passed the test and now i just got to take the actual test and i don't have to take any classes because been there done that and all of us we all have weird histories and weird members that have worked and made somebody you know money i've i have worked out outwork the fool the mule and other ethnic groups and i made the least money out of all of them the mule made more money than i did it's just that's just how it worked out but i've been here before and i was out of here for five years and worked with somebody that we just couldn't see eye to eye and then other complications license and id disappearing just all kind of stuff happening at once and i ended up here again you wouldn't believe some of the people i've seen here we have an ex-heart surgeon named frank that used to be in the shelter a million dollar house just it's very surprising who ends up in this place But it's been a valuable resource, and I plan to make the most of it again and get back on the road ahead. And that'll be it.

Court Wallace? Coy.

My name is Court Wallace. I'm from Union County. I went to Metrolina Christian Academy all 12 years, and I went to Bible Baptist Tabernacle in the mountains and got my seminary degree. And I want to let y'all know that not all people that are at that shelter are bad. I think that I've seen your Facebook page, and you posted some pictures that you had taken around the shelter and of us and of my friends. And you said how we were drug addicts and how we were causing detriment to the community. And you posted pictures of litter and stuff that were far beyond the shelter bounds. And I want to let you know that most of the people that litter and do the crimes are the people out in the community. And I think the people that are at the shelter, we're held to high standards there. We have case managers that if we pee on the floor, they come and talk to us. I mean, we can't really do any wrong, so the people at the shelter are not the problem, per se. Now, hanging out on the street, some people that are out there can't come on either property. They can't come on the shelter property. They can't come on to the park property because they've been banned because of Maybe their situation had them outside drinking something one day, maybe. But these people aren't bad people. You know, they're just unhoused, nowhere to go. And that's the only place they have to sit. And I'm glad we're outside. Because, you know, three months I get the air conditioner, and then I'm put out. And I have to stay out here in this all day long. I don't get a break from this. And in a few months, it's going to get cold. And we're going to be out here. And if it wasn't for people like Miss Mary, who has provided me four tents now. Four tents. Now, mind you, I grew up here. I was born and raised here. My grandma sent me to private school here. I owned property here. I sold property here. You know, I had my life together. And I'm not going to say anything about them, but the Union County Sheriff's the ones who took it away from me. You know, they took me to jail for an unlawful reason. They took everything that I owned in my van and impounded it. Released me on the 19th day after they had auctioned off my van the previous day. I was set up by them because the people that work at that place, the officer that was just called out for wrongfully entrapping people like that is the one who got me, rendered me in here. You know, if it wasn't for that, I wouldn't be here. I'd be in my van living my life, having my inheritance money that was in that van, $6,000 they took. My van they took. My life they took. My clothes they took. Everything that I had from my grandma, Cora, Dean Wallace, and Court Wallace when they passed. My dad died not too long ago. I sold his property and bought this RV. They took it from me. This is the third vehicle that the Union County Sheriffs have taken from me. And it's when we try to stand back up, it's like people cut us back down. Like we walk up here to the store and the looks that we get from people because of what y'all guys have sat around and talked about us, posted on your Facebook page that us homeless people are doing such detriment to the community when we're not. It's other people out here in the community that need to be, you know, that needs to be addressed with them. We're not the problem. Robin Merriman.

Hello, my name is Robin Merriman. I live in Monroe, been a citizen for 26 years here. I also work here at the shelter. I do not represent the shelter tonight. I'm here as a citizen. Most of the people that I've worked with have tragedy in their lives. They have trauma in their lives. I've seen a lot of people overcome that tragedy, that trauma, but they need the help of the community to do so. Affordable housing is the biggest problem we have right now. Even though I work full time, if I did not have help with another family member in my home helping me pay my bills, I might be at that homeless shelter. I am a paycheck away from being in that homeless shelter because if I had something happen that I couldn't pay my part of the bills, I would lose my home. I am proud of the people that I serve. 48% of the people that come through our doors have some kind of income. It may be low, it may be only that $900-some Social Security. We've had senior citizens, the increase of senior citizens coming through our doors is tremendous. They were in stable housing. Their rent increased, they couldn't stay there no longer. We have growing children putting their fathers out in our parking lot because they're tired of taking care of them anymore. We pick up the pieces. We need the community to help us pick up these pieces. We also need transportation in this county. These people struggle. They struggle to, they cannot get a job if they can't get to the job. We give them bicycles. Not all of them can ride bicycles. One gentleman, I'm going to tell you a story real quick. He was in the shelter for three months. Got a job at the Dollar Tree up by the hospital. He could barely walk. Takes him two hours to walk to work every day. He walks back to the shelter even when he wasn't in shelter because we were his food source. He's back in the shelter. still has his job or even being outside for 90 days by the way maintain his job sleeping outside he is being housed this friday please help us be a community we we need to help each other to make i mean this is a problem and as far as mr robin your time's up thank you

Jen Sanders?

Hi, everyone. Jen Sanders, Union County. I actually was looking around and I kind of wish there was a county commissioner here because, as has been stated, this is a national emergency but also a full county issue. It's not fair and it shouldn't be the sole responsibility on Monroe to take care of the shelter for all of Union County, which we know is 600 square miles. And the county's only paid about $30,000 towards the shelter in general. And I think if county commissioners were sitting here in this room like they should be and coming to the meetings to find out about what's happening with the shelter, I think that we could rattle a few cages and have them pay a little bit more attention because it is their responsibility as well. So with the statement that the plan is to not shut down the shelter, I think that we can work within those boundaries, of course. Our neighborhood personally, that I live in Waxhaw, we provide meals for the shelter monthly. We do two meals monthly for a shelter where I live. so we've we've volunteered there my kids have been there we do the dishes we pack up we did fourth of july cupcakes you know we do the whole thing so we're we're stepping up and helping where we can so our friends who don't have a bed can still get a hot meal i'm grateful that this meeting is happening so we can hear from all the amazing people that are showing up today And that this is an opportunity to make real changes that are not just positive, but they're also life-changing. Supporting all the organizations that step up and support our friends is a great step in the right direction. There are so many great representatives here in the room. The thing I'd like to leave you with, that you never quite know why someone would need a shelter or a hot meal. So I'm going to share something really personal with you. you know I'm quite nervous to share it but I grew up very very very poor and I grew up where I had to spend Saturdays in the food line I got the block of government cheese and the powdered milk and my mom would make that stretch by taking a small little thing of milk and putting it in and we'd freeze our milk we were homeless for four days because my mom sorry

I'm pausing it.

Thank you. We were homeless for four days because my mom got cancer and my stepfather at the time didn't quite know how to handle that. And so they had a big fight. My mom left and we had an apartment and we couldn't make our rent because she had to do chemotherapy. And so we were homeless for four days, and the blessings of God that my stepfather actually woke up and took us back in. But I know what it was like to be there, and I was 12 years old. And so I want to thank everybody for being here today and sharing their stories. And again, you just never quite know what someone's history is. Thank you.

David Hedgepeth.

Mr. Mayor and council members, my name is David Hedgepeth. I'm 75, a little bit above the age up at the shelter. Some of my background is I graduated from Clemson, industrial engineering. My work time was selling used textile equipment. I've been to every state in the United States, as well as 22 countries. I'm a registered voter, and I will be working the polls down in Stallings at midterm. And I live up at the shelter. I'm there because I've made many bad choices in my life, many mistakes. I'm really out of shelter because I have no other place to go. I've burnt all the bridges between my friends, colleagues, and family. I'm not there because of drugs or alcohol. I've just made a lot of stupid mistakes, and I'm just an oss. Now the shelter is a safe place. I feel safe there. I feel safe outside. I feel safe walking at night along any place. One example of being safe for me is I leave my laptop, my tablet, my phone on the bed all the time and nobody touches them. The staff there is really great. They're great people. And I think the staff likes me, as well as most of the clients, I hope. I do take part in basically every activity at the shelter. You know, it's a beautiful place up there on the hill. And every one of you, everybody here, needs to come up there and visit. Maybe come and get one of the free meals. I suggest Monday morning breakfast. Now, of course, you know, there's been talk about drug addicts, prostitution, and crime around the place. That's just a bunch of silly, ridiculous, frivolous, and stupid talk. Kind of like this meeting is tonight. So, thank you for your attention.

Peter Carlin.

Thank you so much. I'm Peter Carlin. Thank you. This is awesome. This is exactly what needs to happen to bring a community together to solve this problem. And it is a problem. And unlike the gentleman that just spoke, facts matter. There's been 500 calls for service in the period of a year to the shelter. There's been stabbings, there's been drug dealing. That's not a fantasy, that's not made up, that's a fact and you can read the police reports. There is no one here, that doesn't support the shelter, including me. I support the shelter 100% and it's not getting shut down. I support 100% the people that need services in the shelter. I've worked with the population personally for over 10 years, 25 years in total. And I'm currently the chairman of the board of the homeless ministry. So I know a little bit about the population. And unlike what other people say here, there is a population in the homeless, a subsect of the population in the homeless population that want to be homeless. And I know that for a fact, because I've worked with them. And I've worked in the tents, and I've worked in the woods, and I've pulled bodies out of tents before. and I know exactly what it's like. And we're not talking, this doesn't apply to the people who are in the shelters and receiving the services and playing by the rules. These are the people who don't wanna play by the rules, They either can't get into the shelter because they can't pass a test, or there's other mitigating circumstances, or whatever the case may be. But you also have to know that these people are living here, and there was 50 signatures presented to you of grave concern for their safety and their well-being. We can't minimize that. That's just true. So it's great that everybody's here together. I want to be a part of the solution and not part of the problem. i'll help however i can but there's another question here is there any board of directors or the director of the shelter here today okay board of director okay is is the director of the shelter here today okay okay i heard i heard today online that she wasn't invited here that's what they said she wasn't invited here where everybody was invited here. She could have been here and she could have been a part of the solution here and to facilitate, because we can't solve any problems if the leadership of the shelter isn't here or the board of directors, which I'm glad somebody came here. She also said that... She wasn't aware of this or whatever the reason can be. We need full transparency and accountability and cooperation with the shelter. And from my understanding, that hasn't really happened. But I'm looking to be part of the solution and not the problem.

Andrew Pig.

good evening mayor mayor pro temp council my name is andrew pigg i'm a resident of the piedmont loss i'm a retired combat veteran of 18 years i've been to 13 countries 45 states i've seen a lot of different cities this is where i was born and raised I'm not talking, we're not talking about shutting the shelter down or stopping anything in the shelter. We support that. I come from a rehabilitation background. I was an addict and an alcoholic for 10 years. I've got two years sober coming up in two months. I've been... So I'm all for rehabilitation. What I'm not for is those who abuse the amenities in the system. Just a week ago, I watched a man get butt naked in the street who got kicked out of the shelter because it was identified that he was a registered sex offender. That's real stuff. I got it on video. You can watch it. I've got grown men playing on the playgrounds, making families feel unsafe to go to the playgrounds. I've got people doing drugs doing drug deals out there. They're arresting people for public intoxication at 9 a.m. All of these are factual things. It's about cleaning up the streets for the people who pay to live here and pay for these people to live here. This is not against rehabilitation. This is about the crime in the streets. Thank you all.

Tom Green.

i'm sorry i cannot read this david whitley okay okay that's okay handwriting a little bit sloppy this is going to be short and sweet because i'm hot thank you all for setting this up this is much needed got my mom and dad here we on whitley mortgage is on the corner of miller street and pfeiffer street it's kind of ground zero over that way right across the street from operation reach out You know, Operation Reach Out was started by Modine Howie many years ago, and it was a noble cause. They gave food to people who were in between jobs, and it was a really good thing. It's devolved over the years into something that's It's been harmful for our business being so close to Operation Reach Out. We've got no trespassing signs all over our yard, and people continue to come through, sometimes barely clothed. This was cute. Last week, I looked out my window, and there was somebody with their pants around their ankles relieving themselves in our lot. There's people that camp out in the woods beside our lot and they yell out to customers, to my staff, to our tenants, leave, be quiet, go away. And so our police department is fantastic. Sheriff's department is fantastic. I've had a lot of conversations with the police department because I have to. You don't want to confront these people when they're on your property. Some are hot-headed, some are less hot-headed, but it does impact our business. Some of our tenants are hesitant to invite their clients to come to the office because it's like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're going to get over there at Miller Street and Pfeiffer Street. We've had our property vandalized. How much did we, thousands of dollars, like $5,000 worth of repairs on our building. They knocked off the spigot. Water ran, flowed free all Sunday night from 4 p.m. until 6 a.m. It's a $1,500 water bill. They cut off our air conditioner. They cut the lines to the air conditioner. $1,500 for that. So my heart goes out to people who are down on their luck. I want to be a part of the solution as well, but it's really been harmful to be located right on ground zero. Thank you.

Noah Jordan.

How are you guys doing? Awesome. First off, thank you firefighters and first responders for being here. I appreciate all of y'all. I am a resident at Miller Street at the Piedmont Lofts. I'm going to go ahead and say this. I have no problem with the shelter. I mean, really, there's no problem with the shelter. My problem is with the things that people who just sit out the front do. They sit out there all day from it's... I can't walk anywhere without having to carry my pistol and my waistband. And that sounds bad to say, but, and that's me, I'm a grown man at five, whatever, I'm shorter, but I'm stouter, but I mean, if I was a female, I would feel pretty scared living in that apartment complex, walking this nice, beautiful trail that you guys have built, going to this nice, wonderful park, and this nice little walkway right here. I wouldn't feel safe. And that's where I have a problem with it. I mean, during the whole summer, I would go out there, I go to class in the morning, I'm a student at Wingate, go out to class in the morning time, they're out there, come back midday, for lunch or whatever, drunk, doing drugs or whatever. I mean, several times out there smelling weed, drinking out of a plastic cup, drinking beer during the middle of the day. I mean, I just don't think that's the time and place for it, especially in that shelter that houses families like this wonderful lady over here was talking about. She's out here with her child and she's trying to live a better life. It's hard to have that kind of negative image on the whole shelter. Again, I don't have a problem with the shelter. It's the actions that happen with that population out in the front right there. at night time go out there and have a drink with my buddies at my apartment and loud, boisterous, all these different things that you don't want to hear at night whenever they're just being disruptive. I don't think that that is conducive to the community that we're trying to have here. Again, the thing I want to iterate is it's not with the shelter. It's just with going through that area and saying, hey, you guys can't do this here. This is a public setting. Children want to come here to play. Families live around here. Families are in this shelter. This isn't healthy for you to be out here and to do this. And I'm not from this area. I'm from Rockingham, but I live up here, and I see it all the time, and it's like my heart goes out to those people, and I know they have problems, but at the same time, it's like, come on, do better, and don't sit there and do drugs all day and drink, and I mean, I just, I know it's a hard ass sometimes, but I mean, really, in a public setting like that just hurts my heart. So anyways, thank you guys. Thank you firefighters and police officers, and thank you guys.

Smokey Wilson.

Yes, sir. I'm one of the homeless people here in Monroe. Not because I chose to be. My house burned down and it put me in a lot of setbacks. And like the gentleman said, yes, I am one of those that sit out down the hill. But I don't drink and all that. That's because I can't be in a shelter and I can't be in public parks. As these officers know, I've been banned from parks, I've been banned from everywhere, just because of stupid decisions I made. But I appreciate everybody, and the homeless shelter is a very great place. They help you as much as they can. Like he said about outreach, that place is great. They could use more help, too, if y'all could help them. I'm done.

Christine DuPont.

I think both sides can agree that this is an issue that needs to be solved. I think where the disagreement is is how we solve it. I feel like where we need is to fix the priorities in line with the public. I think that we need to look at extra support for the community in the shelter. If there's issues with people outside the shelter, why are we not looking into community-based solutions to help these people out? We tried the arrest, put them in jail, arrest, put them in jail. That doesn't fix anything. We tried that. It does not work. We need community-based solutions. We can look to other municipalities that have done this and succeeded. We can steal their ideas. It's not against the rules. We can look at what works best financially, fiscally. We can think of these ideas. We can create inner community resource officers. What I've read and researched in homeless communities is sometimes if you allow the homeless to elect their own community resource officers, things start to get better. they know their own community they know how to police their own community and they know how to make sure to make things right 86 percent in your census that you paid for are people that are temporarily homeless in this city and county temporarily homeless so if we can help 86 percent of these people i don't want us to lose sight just because of the other 14.

I actually have an idea if you would like to hear it.

All right now, sir, you've already had your opportunity. Thank you. All right. Madeline Bob.

Um, the part that I'm about to say is a revised speech of what I gave to the County commissioners at their last meeting. So I am disappointed that none of them are here. Um, so at the last city council meeting, you discussed concerns around the homeless population that gathers near the community shelter. Um, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. While I do agree that there are legitimate concerns, the majority of the discussion centered around how to make things better for the residents of the nearby luxury apartments and less around what to do to help the disenfranchised. You discuss it as a problem to get rid of and not a community to aid. There are members of our community that have nowhere to go when the shelter is at capacity. The average monthly rent in Union County is $1,800, but the average SSI check is only about 900. And to my understanding, it can be lower than that. It's not everybody gets 900. So while the community shelter is in Monroe, they serve Union County. affordable housing or addiction treatment are not one community's challenge. I would like to inspire the county commission, to employ the county commissioners to speak with Monroe City Council to see how we can work together to find a way to help these individuals in the long run and to not just brush the problem under the rug. And then addition, so trigger warning, the next portion does discuss compassion, and that concept did not land well the last time it was brought up in public comments. I'm not saying that serious crimes should not be handled accordingly, but sending people to an overcrowded, understaffed facility for the crime of being homeless or mentally unwell is not the solution. These people need compassionate care, not punitive action. I would also be interested in seeing any available data to show the frequency of arrests and the related charges that are occurring in the area in question.

Thank you.

Again, I can't read this one, so I'm going to say Gilbert.

Thank you for sorry for the bad handwriting. It's Rick Gilbert. And thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Pro Tem Mayor and all the commissioners. I live in Union County. I run a nonprofit. And I tell people it's not for affordable housing. It's for obtainable housing. We have true obtainable housing in our community. In our community, We have homes that are one-bedroom homes, two-bedroom homes that are three-bedroom homes, are one-bedroom homes that are only five years old, brand new, that we rent out for $504 a month, including utilities, including supportive services. So if we could get the, and I'm getting ready to build in Union County, but if we can, we just need to find the, the right zoning to where we can duplicate that to get the people out of the shelter that are actually working and trying to do the right thing. That would free up the shelter to put more people in the shelter. But yes, everybody out there that's on the street, I think it's the people on the street that are actually the problem, not the ones in the shelter. But those people on the street are also someone's brother, someone's father. Someone's mother, someone's sister, whatever. But we do have a proven track record And it's Home Again Foundation, and I would love to meet with each and every one of you to talk to you about that. Thank you.

Jessica Perry.

Hey everyone.

Hi. Really appreciate everybody here today. Thank you so much. Thank you, Mr. Dodson, especially for your immediate attention to property that I called about. Thank you so much. So Rick is a client of mine. The Home Again Foundation is a client of mine. They have been a client for two years. And we are just now getting to a point where we're about to actually move on a property. And I am so excited about that. Fingers crossed. We should be closing next week. So hopefully that will bring more resources. Very excited about that. Thank you. It has taken two years because of zoning. largely because of zoning i understand that there are a lot of developments that are planned in monroe across the county nationwide everywhere but why don't we put some preference towards attainable housing There is the issue of sewer capacity. There is. There is also the issue of just funding in general. We can't ignore those things. But putting preference towards people or towards organizations such as the Home Again Foundation that genuinely care about housing and about getting people, not just housing, but resources and getting people on their feet, I think that we'll actually see some progress in Monroe if we, you know, If we give priority towards low-income housing or attainable housing. So that's really the meat and potatoes of what I got for you guys. Thank you so much. Ms. Perry.

Ms. Perry. It's either for you or Rick. Can you just clarify, have you all started building these houses already, or we're just now getting the UDO?

The ones that he has up in Charlotte, there are some up in Charlotte that are already built. Right.

They've been there five and a half years. Jessica is my commercial realtor with Walt Perry Real Estate. Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

And so we are pursuing land at the moment as we speak. Okay. Yes.

So in Monroe, I don't want to jinx it. I don't want to say exactly where, but we are working within the zoning of the of what the property has. We've been advised not to pursue rezoning, quite frankly, because of the view of attainable housing Monroe so what we've decided not to move forward with with trying to rezone the property we're gonna work within the I think it's our it's low density the conversations that you and I have had have been working within the zoning in order to get those various properties correct thank you yes and I think that's a smart move thank you sir bill by right yes sir thank you thank you so much

Is this, it's hard to read in all these different handwritings. Tracy Mercer, is that right? Pretty sure it's Tracy. Oh, okay.

Hello, my name is Tracy Neamer. I come before you tonight. Not as an outsider looking in, but I hope to give you a perspective as an insider to the Union County Community Shelter. I am a resident there. I have been for a little over two months now. And. Daily I. I am impressed with the resiliency of the people who reside in that facility. Not only the people who live there, the staff. Obviously a lot of people, everyone in there who comes in there have dealt with Uh, some, something in their life that has been an obstacle, uh, for whatever reason, it could be, um, any number of things, but, uh, It's heartening to see the community that exists there, the desire and willingness to support one another, um, to be happy for one another. to have meals with one another, to sit at tables with black, white, brown faces, and always to be welcome, to have conversations, to feel important again. When a lot of people probably don't feel important. And... It's nice to be validated as a person who deserves, who deserves respect, who deserves dignity, who deserves love. And that's what you'll find there. There's a lot of people who care about each other, who support each other, and who are happy for each other when they have success. We've had three successes just in the past five days. A lady, Miss Eileen, who finally got housing. She had a torn... a rotator cuff and a botched shoulder surgery that led to her being unable to work. She lost her housing. She'd been there for several months. She got, she got housed. She's having the surgeries to allow her to work again. And she, we, everyone was happy for her. Another gentleman, Harry Friday, he got a job. The people that he is working for were able to provide him with housing. He got out. We're all happy for him. Sam, who is beloved by all there, yesterday he's worked his way up in the restaurant he works in. He's in management now. He and another lady from the facility got a home to live in, and they are, when we are happy for them, and they are successful. And we all hope to be able to write our own success stories someday, hopefully sooner than later. Mr. Tracy, your time's up. OK. Thank you. But thank you. But we are people, too. And we're your neighbors. And we're citizens.

Matthew Scanga.

Mayor.

Mayor Pro Tem, council, community, thank you so much for the opportunity to speak tonight. My name is Matthew Skanga. I've worked at Ground 40 Ministries for the last six years or so, so I've gotten new understandings coming out of a different field. I think a lot of the same brothers and sisters that are at the shelter sometimes end up at Ground 40. We're a men's addiction ministry about five minutes from here. Christian discipleship ministry. I have friends that are in the shelter right now, men that I have met through Ground 40 that have come back and forth. I've had men from the streets come to Ground 40 and decide to return to the shelter or return to the streets. I think there's different ends of the spectrum. I think there is a thousand different reasons because life is hard. Life is a struggle. I think there's a thousand different reasons that people may end up in the shelter, and I think I may be one of the few people working who desires that their job not exist in the next four or five years. I wish that my job did not exist. Unfortunately, it is growing. Unfortunately, the homelessness in Monroe is growing. And unfortunately the homelessness across the country is growing. And so I think there's different ends of the spectrum. I think Jesus asked a wonderful question when he came to a sick man. He said, do you want to be well? And I think that's a question that each of us has to ask ourself and examine. Do I want to be well? And if I am well, then what responsibility does that place on me? I believe that we are made in the image of God. All of us, everyone in here, made in the image of God. And I believe that because we're made in the image of God, we are made to be purposeful in our lives. I believe we're made to build. I believe we're made to create. I believe we're made to help each other. believe we're made to love each other he did say we'll always have the poor with us and I think that gives us wonderful opportunities to love our neighbor as ourself and to minister to each other I do think and I know that this is too large of a of a question to solve in this hour I think housing is a question is a problem I think the climate that we live in is a problem the financial climate I think I think there are many problems in society. I do know that Jesus is the answer. I know that if you seek him with all of your heart, you will find him. And I believe that he does make a way for each of us. I was in addiction for 25 years, alcoholic and a crack addict. The Lord has delivered me from that. I am no longer an addict. I am able to walk out of that in victory and in freedom in the Lord Jesus. And I do know that he provides that. I know that people do change. I know that people can be transformed by Christ. I see it all the time. We have some successes and we have some failures. We have some that go on and live and thrive with their families and live beautiful lives. And we have some that we end up doing their funerals for. It's a messy business. But sometimes it's a beautiful mess. It's a beautiful mess. I do think that there could be some reforms at the shelter. I think the shelter should exist. And I think it should stay. And I think it serves a great purpose. And unfortunately, I'll be the first to say that the church needs to step it up. I think we need to serve a better purpose too. Amen.

Michelle Ball.

Well, that's hard to go after, but we have a lot of the same sentiment. I believe we can talk about homelessness honestly while still treating people with dignity and compassion. We can't just have a homeless committee. We need to put feet in action. Ignoring homelessness isn't compassion. Allowing someone struggling with addiction, mental illness, or difficult circumstances to remain on the street without trying to connect them with real help isn't a solution either. It can't just be a government issue either. We need to bring the right people to the table and we do need our city and we do need Union County. But we also need law enforcement, churches, I wholeheartedly agree with what he said, nonprofits and organizations already working with people in need and ask a simple question. What is working? What isn't working? And what can we do better? When someone wants help, we should have a clear path to connect them with the appropriate resources. But compassion requires accountability. Our families should feel safe using our parks. Our businesses should be able to operate without being repeatedly disrupted. And laws against things like trespassing, vandalism, violence, and illegal drug activity should be enforced fairly and consistently whether someone is homeless or not. And if taxpayer dollars are being spent to address homelessness, I want to know whether those programs are actually producing results. This isn't about pushing people somewhere else so we don't have to see the problem. It's about addressing the problem instead of allowing it to grow. We can help people in need while protecting our neighborhoods and businesses and our public spaces. Compassion and accountability can and should go hand in hand. Thank you.

Tina Mosley.

Good afternoon, everyone. I am Tina Mosley, the founder of Marcus. This summer through Marcus, we made a decision that we were not simply going to talk to young people about gun violence. We were going to show them both the consequences of the bad choices and the possibilities that still exist for their future. Through our men of purpose summer youth program, We served 25 young men and exposed them to education, employment, accountability, and real life experiences. We took them on college tours so that they could see themselves in those campuses and understand that higher education and successful careers are within their reach. We also partnered with two companies that allowed them to work, gain job experience, receive mentorship, and a paycheck. We were incredibly blessed to receive a $20,000 donation from the members of the Dallas Cowboys organization, allowing us to provide each participant $500 for a back-to-school shopping spree and supplies. but we also wanted them to understand the consequences. We took them inside Central Prison in Raleigh, North Carolina, the very place where the man convicted in my son's murder now resides. During that visit, one young man told me his father was incarcerated there and that he had not seen him in more than 10 years. He asked if I could help him see his dad. I swallowed hard and told him no. Not to be cruel, but because I needed them to understand something. When you pull a trigger, the consequences do not end with the person who was shot. You can lose your freedom, you can lose your birthdays, your graduations, holidays, family dinners, and years you can never get back. The young man wanted to see his father, And in that moment, they understood that incarceration does not include only punishment for one person. And because it becomes a family sentence. And then we took them to the cemetery because gun violence can lead young people to two devastating places, prison or the grave. But our program was never about fear. It was about showing them another way, college employment, leadership, responsibilities, family purposes, and life. And this is where the community must get involved. Some people, some young people are growing up in circumstances many of us could never imagine. Some have little or no constant adult supervision. Some are left to care for themselves and make adult decisions before they are ready. If positive adults do not step into these spaces, somebody else will. The streets, the gangs, and the guns. We must support our young people, mentor them, invest in them, and love them. But we must also hold them accountable. We have to stop asking what is wrong with these kids and start asking what happened to them? What do they need and what? we can do to help. Is my time up?

Yes, ma'am.

Okay, thank you very much.

Thank you. Clayton Woodson.

Thank you, Mr Mayor, members of the Council. Apologies for the lapse in protocol and me holding up the meeting. I am president and CEO of the Union County Chamber of Commerce. We serve from Marvin to Marshville, all of Union County, but we are darn proud that our home base is right on the other side of this tree line. So I do want to say I've only been on the job and only been a resident of Union County for eight months. And in that time frame. I can honestly say we have had zero incidences of any kind, of any safety or security issues at the Chamber of Commerce, and not just of unhoused individuals, of any individuals of any kind. We feel incredibly safe at our location there, for what it's worth. I know we are a little bit adjacent to the geography that we are talking about, I will say that in my time that the community shelter, it feels like we are having two simultaneous conversations here. One is a conversation on the merits of the community shelter, and the other is the homeless issue at large. First, on the community shelter, I will tell you that they are an invaluable resource, not only to the folks within their program, but to the other philanthropic network that we've got in the larger Union County community. Now for the other homeless topic that we're talking about, the homeless issue at large, while the geography is mainly affecting Monroe, this issue is much larger than that. I know the intent of tonight's meeting was to solicit information, feedback, to have some actionable items for our staff to be able to address this issue. My recommendation would be for Monroe to be the leader in this situation. Pull together a community-wide, a county-wide task force. Governmental, non-profit, faith-based law enforcement. to holistically look at this issue. The Chamber of Commerce would be a very willing participant in such a task force and could probably provide one or two examples of some other communities that have had some success in addressing this because the ultimate goal is for these individuals to find upward mobility and provide economic opportunity, and we want to be a part of that solution. Thank you.

Okay, at this time, we will take a five-minute break. Okay? That is everyone? Thank you. Okay, let's continue here. Next up, as we said today, we are not going to be able to remotely come to a conclusion or how to fix homelessness, but we are here to discuss things that we can community... talk or fix as a community you start working together as a community okay so the first up i'd like to introduce our police chief chief boland

Good evening, Mayor, Mayor Pro Tem, City Council, Mr. Watson, Mr. Long. Tonight, I just wanted just to say a few things. Monroe Police Department is here to help serve work along with partners. I've heard a lot of good things tonight from those that run businesses to those who run the shelter. This is not us against the shelter us against homelessness. We're just a law enforcement agency trying to do the best we can for those individuals who need help. So with that said I was tasked with providing some information in regards to calls for service for our agency in regards to the shelter miller street meadow street okay and i'm going to go back from 2024 to currently of 2026 so about two and a half years because of service for 2024 you're looking at 693. now i'm going to give a comparison because i wanted you i want everybody to understand And this is not necessarily those that are staying at the shelter, okay? But these are calls that we get over there. Walmart, for that particular year in 2024, we got 680 calls. In 2025, over here at the shelter, it was 580 calls for service. Walmart was 553. As of right now in 2026 and this when I say calls for service. This is one officer go into the call this is not talking about additional officers for backup. This is for one particular officer going to the call in 2026 of January to the September of now we have responded to the shelter in that area 347 times. And that Walmart is 305. So it gives you kind of a comparison. We wanted you to kind of see Walmart. You know, before the new shelter came, Walmart is a very busy place for us, and still is to some extent. I was taught, so I'm going to go through some calls that we would get. And so some of these calls that would come out for the officers would be disturbances, assault. Some of that could be fights. Some of that could be domestic. Some of that could be stalking. We responded approximately about 300 calls of service for that two and a half years, okay? Drugs and overdose poisoning about 50 calls, okay? Over preventive patrols that we've done so far is about 600. January since 2000 to 26 we have written about 50 reports at the shelter that's this year. Last year was 57 reports so we're we're a little over half year we're we're going to reach that mark that we we passed last year.

So what's the hour spent for officers.

So January through September of this year. We spent 93 hours at the shelter. Again, I want you to focus on just one officer. OK, that's not including other additional officers. It's going to show up to help out. So one officer is going to show up. They spent 93 hours during that time in that shelter. Whatever that call look like, whatever that call is service for the. Estimated since 2024, there was approximately 700 hours that we spent per officer. There so. Gives you a little bit of idea of what we as law enforcement have encountered. Like I mentioned last time, you know, we don't want to arrest people and take them to jail. I know somebody mentioned that earlier. Yes, we will do that if we have to, but that's not the goal we want to do. You know, we would love for them to find a place and it sounds like there's a lot of great ideas that came out here. And yes, I do agree that the police department needs to play a role in that for sure. But we're just one piece of it. just give you an idea what the cost of an officer is. And I'm just giving a baseline of police officer one with no experience. He's coming to he or she's coming to work for us. Don't have any experience. You're looking at about almost a little over close to $62,000 a year just to come and work for our agency. Okay, so I just want to kind of give that, um, an idea for you. So

Okay. Chief, do you keep track of all the hours that you guys have been called to the surrounding area to around the shelter?

Yes, sir. So yes, sir. So what we've done is we we usually use a block range majority of the time. So this this afternoon before I came to this meeting, I had our crime analyst pull our calls and get a just to get an idea of kind of what our call history has been with the shelter and that's how I was able to provide those numbers for you.

So those numbers include the area all together? Yes, sir.

Chief, is there any other area of Monroe that has that percentage of calls?

Like I used Walmart as an example, I would say there's probably comparable, yes ma'am, and I would just say this. I met with our community team this morning. They're the ones that the boots are on the ground out there dealing, you know, encountering folks, dealing with businesses, dealing with those that are living in the woods. And, you know, one of those was around Walmart Lowe's area where they had a place in the back and was dealing with that. So I would say they would be comparable. Yes, ma'am.

There's any residential area. Public housing area.

Not compared to this area. No, ma'am.

One other question. Of the calls, if it's a medical call, is that a call for service as well?

It is, and I know that Chief Fowler is going to get up here and speak, too, so I don't want to steal his thunder. I appreciate the police coming up before the fire guys, but... But yes, ma'am when when when America medical call goes out. We're first responders as police officers we're going to we're going to rival saying and there's been many times we have they showed up. And they don't need us and we leave.

Yes, ma'am it sure does. One quick question to kind of piggyback on with their protein mass do we have the breakdown of the stats on the particular calls for those 500 calls. breakdown of what the different calls.

You talking about here? Yes. Yes, sir, I sure do. I mean, I can read them all for you.

I don't need them all, just a percentage. Maybe these calls were medical, these calls were crime, you know, violent crime, you know, something like that, so people can understand what the 500 calls consist of.

So what I did, what I did is I highlighted some things, so maybe that will help everybody in the audience and yourself. So just give you an example. for disturbance and a nuisance. Okay, that's one call of service. So you're looking at 177 calls just for that particular call. Um, you then you're looking at your sauce and it breaks it down. Assaults, assaults with injuries, domestics, those are all breaking broken down. So you're looking at an assault just that one with no injuries. You're looking at about 20 calls of service there. Um, and then it just, it goes down, goes down the list. I mean, I'll be happy to give this to you. You can have a copy of it. Um, but yeah, it does.

Thank you. We can always share that on Tuesday to any other questions.

Chief, I've got a question for you. You know, I think there's some sensitivity to the individuals who are actually clients of the shelter. And I think they feel like this is targeted towards them. And a lot of the calls for service is in the environment surrounding the shelter. And so if we can make some corrections or we can compromise on maybe some of the ways that the shelter and the police department can work together, we can change that environment because it's a lot of what's happening outside the shelter. Would you agree with that?

Yes, sir. What I've done since our last meeting, I personally have gone. I walk the city gives me a chance to see what's going on and get a little bit of exercise. But I made a point to go to the shelter. And those that are attendants that lay out on the grass, they're going to know that they see a guy wearing a weighted vest walking around. He's kind of crazy. That's me. And some of them don't live at the shelter. They're not able to stay at the shelter. And so you have those factors. It's not about the individuals that live there. They're trying to, like people said tonight, trying to improve their way of living. It's people that are coming there. And I'll just piggyback on that. I used to work these streets for many, many years, and it wasn't the people that lived in the neighborhoods. You had a lot of good people that lived in those neighborhoods that grew up generation after generation after generation. It was the people coming into those neighborhoods that lived outside the city that would cause the problem. So, yes, sir.

You know the questions she had a question to give perspective how many calls for services, the city had January to September one and they said 3 what 3.47 you take into this area, how many calls for the city overall so that we could understand the percentage.

Approximately. I would probably triple that call for service. I would probably triple it. So a third. A third of that I would.

A third of your calls for service have been this one area. Thank you.

Councilman McGee.

Chief, I would like to know what type of programs have we implemented since there's been an influx of calls surrounding the shelter. Have we Increase our police in where guys are getting on segways of us. It was a kind of build more relationships with the population over there to kind of. Be aware of what's happening before the calls come to try to see if we can mitigate some of that.

I think that so. Answer to your question. I know you brought that up last City Council. Those are we don't have segways any longer. Those are things that we can look at. Maybe what are tools we can use? I can tell you that officers have been in the area getting out with folks talking with people. And I think once you do that, those that are staying in shelter, they stay inside and they don't cause any problems. It's those that want to cause it. Once you see the blue lights or you see a police car come by one time, they're going to know you're out there. It doesn't take long. And so they're going to move on and not have any issues. Like I said this morning, the community folks are here, the community officers are here, the sergeant. um and some officers and we've talked about some ways that we can engage engage folks at the shelter they come together because we're all in agreeance it's we don't want to send them to jail i mean we at the end of the day if that's what we got to do then that's what we have to do and um that's not our primary goal And I hope people in this audience understand that when I say that, because I mean it. I've been doing this job 25 years, and if I say something, I mean what I say. But I think there's other ways we can do it. And like we talked this morning, what we've been doing is not working. We've got to come up with something different. We've got to think outside the box. And so I'm very open to that. Yes, sir.

Let me ask you, do you find that some of the calls is habitual to the same person?

Yes, ma'am.

Okay. So is it foreseeable and just as hypothetical, could one person maybe have 50 calls? Is that?

It's feasible. Yes, ma'am.

Thank you.

Chief, I have one more question. Yes, sir. It's kind of rhetorical in a way. We can't arrest our way out of this issue. But if you could remove 10, 15, 20 individuals piggybacking what she's saying, there are repeat calls for service. That would help immensely.

Yes, sir.

And being able to control the environment, having the ability to trespass individuals off property and those type of things would at least give you a tool in your toolbox.

Yes, sir.

Not the first thing to go to, but you would at least have something to remove some of those individuals who may be coming from the – I've walked those surrounding neighborhoods. I've done that last week or so. There are good people in those neighborhoods and they're, they're just, they're tired. They're, they're tired of having people walk through the neighborhood.

One of the things, um, if you guys remember years ago, we used to have a prostitution free zone and that was the unit that we were on. And that was, and why was that generated? It was generated from the people that lived over there. in the Newtown area, and so we listened to their voices, and we wanted to make it a safer place for people to get out and walk down the street. One of those things that we never did implement, but we talked about it, was creating a drug-free zone I know there's a house bill going on, 437, I believe is the house bill. I think there's some pushback going on, but if that does come to fruition, where we're able to use that tool, then that's just something for us. I know Mr. Wilson, I think was his name, that got up here and said he don't do drugs, but he likes to hang out at the park. One of the problems that we have is we used to have Monroe High School, or Monroe Middle School kids from the schools, UA, would come over here and use this park, But they would get hassled by people, you know, that would be around, you know, sitting around the park and they didn't feel safe. And I don't blame them, but if we were able to get some things that gave us some teeth, that would help us. And I think we can do that. Yes, sir.

I think we all appreciate the fact that the officers put in how many preventative calls for service?

Well, as of right now, 563.

I mean, there's no location that receives that many preventative calls for service. So we don't know what the environment would be like if it wasn't for the initiative of the officers going out there.

Yes, sir.

So they should be applauded for that.

Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you, Chief. Thank you.

Thank you.

At this time, I'd like to call our fire chief, Ron Fowler.

Good evening, Mayor and Council.

I would like to share a little bit information from my perspective with the shelter. Let me start with saying we do have a really good relationship with the shelter, with the staff, with the residents. We work very closely with them from a fire code perspective, that type of thing. And one thing that this shelter does that I would just commend them for is In the wintertime, they provide the warming stations, and in the summertime, they provide the cooling stations. We work really closely with them on those. So we certainly appreciate that. As far as our call volume, over the last three years, it was 466 calls for service there. with the shelter and the immediate vicinity around the shelter, with the majority of those being at the shelter itself, and with the vast majority of those being medical calls. And I think that's because of the I think a couple of things. One is the density there, the population density, you know, with the shelter. But I think the other is just the things like access to health care, transportation, those type of things. that creates that that need to call for for medical assistance uh more often i um of those 466 uh it's averaging about 150 a year and 2023 is 143 24 is 171 25 is 145 so it's staying pretty consistent 103 so far this year um Yeah, I kind of compare it for us to the assisted living facilities in town. And I actually pulled the data on those and it's very close to about those same numbers that we run to assisted living facilities, three or four of those around town. So I kind of compare that call volume very closely to those. I'll be happy to answer any questions that you may have.

Council.

All right, thank you.

Okay, at this time, I'll introduce our city manager, Mark Watson, to discuss our property maintenance, right-of-ways, Winchester Avenue property, and other things that they've been working on. Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you, Mayor. At the last City Council meeting there was quite a bit of interest in what improvements could be made to city owned facilities land parks, etc In in the area of Miller Street Meadow Street Stafford Street and at that uh city council meeting i mentioned that the city actually owns or the city utilities actually owns 46 acres in between miller and stafford street currently and just actually very recently our parks and recreation department concluded and finished up a greenways extension trail Through the middle of that property over to craft Park that project was actually funded by through North Carolina Parks and Recreation through a part of grant for $500,000. So it's that kind of investment that's been made over there to develop a greenways extension. And so those are real public dollars. Those are tax dollars that have been invested in that area. Looking at the property that we do own, the 46 acres there between Miller and Stafford Street and approximately 25 acres along Winchester Avenue, between Winchester Avenue and the railroad, that's approximately another 25 or so acres. That's a total of 71 acres. That's quite a bit of land. Our utilities. on the 46 acres have a regular maintenance schedule that they go by to mow, clear the vegetation off the tops of sewer lines, water lines, gas lines that we have through there, trim trees and et cetera away from electric lines. So there's quite a bit of effort that goes into that. but no more so than any other utility easements that we have or utility property that we have across the city. Once you add the greenway, it changes the whole dynamic in that area. And so staff has been looking at and get some cost estimates for actually going in and cleaning up all of the underbrush off of that 46 acres, taking down some of the smaller trees, not the larger trees, But making it where it's clear, you can see all the way through there, it would be where people felt safe. Walking down the Greenway, you can see what's on each side of you as you walk down through there, that type thing. And the estimates that I have at this point is $37,000 to do that major cleanup. And that's just between the 46 acres between Millard and Stafford. The Winchester property, similarly situated, is $28,000 to clean that up. The $37,000 would be coming out of the utility accounts, and the $28,000 would be coming out of the account that's already established for the Winchester project. um in addition there are private properties adjacent to these city-owned properties and one of those properties being the lofts property the lofts property has an ex had an expiring agreement with the city of monroe and particularly with the police department it was called an act as agent agreement And an act in its agent agreement allows the property to be posted for no trespassing, loitering, or soliciting. And it allows the Monroe Police Department to actually address trespassing, loitering, and soliciting concerns on that property without having to go through the property management folks. That is actually a strategy that's used in a number of cities, including Charlotte and the city of Charleston. They they have a very active a very active Act as agent program and we are looking at expanding that Not only in the areas that we've talked about across the street and in this area, but up to uptown and Or downtown city of Monroe So we have Executed an update agreement with the the lofts property to act as agent in addition giving us permission to go in and Clear that property as we're in there working on our properties at the same time. And as it turns out, there's a longstanding electric power easement that traverses that lost property kind of on a diagonal and the next topic i'd like to get into is lighting and that really becomes an integral part of the lighting plan for that area over there so after the after the last city council meeting I left that meeting and I came over and I rode up and down all of these streets over here. And quite frankly, I was really kind of shocked at how dark it was. We have a good many streetlights, but there's so much more that we can do. If you will recall, I believe it's been well over a year ago, Miss Anthony, where we relamped all the streetlights in the Winchester community. Then we relamped all the streetlights over in the Ice Morley community, made some tremendous impacts, lighting up those communities with fresh LED lights, brighter lights, and the whole purpose is to make it safer for the general public to walk in the community at their leisure. The plan is to go in and add additional streetlights on Meadow Miller stafford streets but in addition to add street lighting or lighting along the greenway and along this long existing easement that traverses the The general cost of that is somewhere around $10,000 to add those lights. Of course, there's the electric cost to the city going forward, but that's really nominal, especially for the new LED lights. let's see that the um the contracts are being let right now for the for the land cleanup and when that's concluded the uh the lighting will begin the other item that was discussed in the city council meeting was the idea of emergency call boxes and staff has been looking at those we've talked to several other municipalities and cities that have that program. We've talked to various vendors. The call boxes range in price installed between $4,800 and $7,000 each. Staff, including parks and rec staff, facility staff, and city administration, along with some of the planning staff, are looking at not only the Greenway area, but all of our parks, because it did call into question the fact that we don't have any emergency call boxes in any of our parks. Or when you look at any of our community centers, or in our downtown area or in our downtown parking lots or at as a chief fowler and i've discussed the possibility of placing them these call boxes in front of the fire stations across the city now mark how are those powered if you were to do those in the greenway how would you get power to them There are solar powered ones and there are hard wired ones. So I would imagine that accounts for some of the price difference that I just mentioned. Meetings with vendors have been set up to gain some additional information. And then we'll put that information together with the I really like the idea of. looking at a more comprehensive plan and just not something for a specific area right and then of course you've heard the the police and fire response reports um and mr mayor i think i've covered all of those areas

Is there anyone that I haven't covered that... Did you want to bring up the utility guys or did you cover... I'm sorry? Did you want to bring up Jay or Rob or no? You could talk about the utilities and the lighting and things like that.

We'll have time to do that in the strategic meeting with city council where they'll go into more detail about the actual maps and the numbers. And we'll have the numbers for the... the call boxes at that time for you and if i could take a minute of personal privilege and i'd like to thank the union county facility staff that's here tonight that helped set all this up and you know has work so well with city staff you know they're here maintaining their bathrooms and their facilities and and they've opened this up free of charge to the city and I really appreciate that thank you okay any questions okay council at this time

thank you mark for that and we appreciate all the hard work that the staff and everyone is doing right now this time council i'm going to open the floor to ideas now to expand on some of the things that we've heard tonight and kind of just discuss those things mr main yes ma'am um

We've heard a lot of information tonight from residents, from individuals who are experiencing homelessness, residents of the loft, residents of the shelter. And one thing that I hear is that whatever we do needs to be a joint effort. I don't think it can be a quick fix. I think it, as Amanda said, needs to be very, needs to be consistent and comprehensive. And it's just struck me when we talk, when we say homeless, we're knocking them all together. And there's different types of homeless people. There's transitional, episodic, chronic, Transitional and we talk about homeless we had that they're all the same and as we work on this we're going to have to address it and look at it the right way and we got to remember when we don't have to stay posted if I miss about 7 checks out beyond this so I've tried to be realistic about it and one thing we all have in common with the compassion part we all humans so I think we need to really work hard include county commissioners community. The nonprofits to work with all this I just don't think it's something that we that we can sit around and saw because it's not that it's all about is all about issue.

I want to touch on what the city manager brought up and I would like to say that There is hope that this is going to get fixed. This is not impossible. Nobody wants to close the shelter. We can make the environment better. In Charlotte, they had 642 calls for service at their uptown men's shelter. The response that they brought to that included staff training, consistent written rules, a written banning policy, better call documentation, no loitering signs, authority to act as agent, And importantly, they did exactly what we're wanting to do. Clean up the area, put in better lighting. They went from 642 calls in one year to 282 calls in one year. Now with that, we have to also offer help with mental health, substance addiction, housing, family problems, job loss, and other issues. But I also want to tell you this. Monroe taxpayers and community are putting out for this mini shelter. It may not feel like it, but you're hearing it. I mean, 700 hours of police service, 466 fire calls for service city clearing properties. That's that's costing us money. Lighting 10,000 in electric bills. What I want you to understand is the average citizen is not heartless to this problem. They are supporting the community shelter. But what we have to do is we have to put all of that in the right direction. And that will only come from the community shelter working with us and us working with the community shelter and get everybody involved. So there is hope. This is just the first step. So thank you.

I have a question. I know we're talking mainly about... I know tonight we're talking mainly about military, the shelter, and the law, but I think as we work on that, we need to talk about our homeless problems all over the city, because who's to say people in another area are not going to come over here? So we need to look at the issue in a broader sense. I know this is immediate, but I think we'd be neglecting the citizens if we don't look at the whole issue.

Mr. Luda, I would say this. I did some digging. The Monroe Housing Authority's total budget for last year was $4.8 million. $4.8 million. Now, that's for the county, but that includes Monroe. Other HUD money that comes into the city of Monroe, the low estimate is $1.75 million. The high estimate could be $3.53 million. That means that currently there's $6.55 million being spent in the city of Monroe in Union County to address homelessness. This is a federal issue as well. We need to get everyone involved, including our Congress representation and our state representation. But whatever we do has to be transparent, and it has to hit the mark. It can't just be throwing money away.

Absolutely. I agree with that 100%. That's what I was saying. Everybody needs to be involved. And we spend a lot of money, but this issue is really bigger than money. I know we're throwing the money, but we gotta look at the middle half. We gotta look at a lot of things. Money helps the issue, but it doesn't solve this.

Council. Can you hear me? Council, one of the things I would like to look at and we've touched on this a little bit is expanding the enforcement zone around downtown into this area. OK, and if we were to do that, I would like to have or give the. the administration the authority to kind of start researching that and get back to us and what that would look like including whatever the feasibility cost of that would be chief to add uh potentially the one or two officers i remember that's what you said last time that it would roughly take to be able to do that so we don't you know spread them too thin but this again is only to see what the cost would be and what that would incur this is not a vote to do it

okay so but i would like to see what we could do to do that um council any thoughts on that i'd like to see two different options one being a full-time officer or two full-time officers the other would be opening it up to overtime or allowing that to be something that officers work extra to do the other thing is is i know we have the community shelter board member here, I would love to hear any security options that you might have, security personnel that you might bring in or ways that you can work with us to try to get us access to kind of help them with that. The other thing is authority to act as agent, as you heard the city manager talk about. It doesn't necessarily have to be inside the building. We can get authority to act as agent on the property and never come in the building, but that would at least give us a little bit of the ability to identify those who are causing the problems. and be able to remove them. So that might be a discussion that you want to have with the police chief as well. Thank you.

would like to see us actually engage in the county sheriff department again this is not just a city issue and how can we engage with the county it needs to be some type of contractual agreement that everybody sees fit to support the community shelter in the surrounding area so again i think it's more comprehensive it's bigger than the city of monroe um we need to get this task force i think the thing that's more pressing for me is get a task force that's going to allow all municipalities, all the county commissioners, all city council members of all the municipalities to come to the table, churches, nonprofits. We all need to come to the table to decide how are we, the community, are going to help our unsheltered and homelessness in Monroe and Union County. That's what I think we need to do.

Okay. To be able to do that, we do need some direction. So what I would say, council, just consent. Is that all we need just to give... Chief and everybody, consent just to research these things that we've talked about? Is that okay for Tuesday? Okay. Consent? Do we have consent? Okay, because I want to do that just to see what it looks like. Again, this is not expanding the zone. We need to look and see that when we're talking about these things, we actually know what we're talking about and what the cost and feasibility for all these are. Okay. Yes, sir.

That's a pretty tall order. We'll we'll bring you we'll we will start working on that. We'll start putting those numbers together. Chief and I have already had some preliminary discussion, but I just want to manage the expectations. We're talking about bringing, you know, ideas, high level ideas, not not a finished product plan. Correct.

OK, I want to be clear. So He's going to be researching the ideas given here tonight or what I do.

I think expanding, I think what he's saying is a consent to have the police chief look at expanding the zone from downtown to include the community shelter area. to look at doing authority to act as agent, working with the community shelter to figure out security ideas that we can cooperate with them in that could ease some of the issues on the surrounding area. Okay.

To be transparent, I think it needs to be spelled out. So he knows exactly what he's researching and so we know it too.

I'll just interject this. We have a downtown master plan that we're working with, correct? And in that plan, we've identified broadening down to five points and other places like that. So I would make the suggestion that we take that... tool we already have and see what it would be to expand those areas that way too because it's not just this area it's down there and since it's there we could that might be a template. That's just a thought.

Some of the areas the Belt Tonawanda Park, Winchester and things like that have already been added to the master planning area but really we're talking about apples and oranges on those things. What I have here is to bring back ideas, to bring back opportunities for patrol enforcement enhancements and to include dedicated patrol. expanding downtown patrol zones I wrote down jurisdictional areas other enforcement patrol tools and I just like to say on the jurisdictional part is general statutes clearly defined the jurisdictional area between what is the responsibility of the city and the county we do have interlocal agreement so if we need extra resources from them for whatever reason all we have to do is pick up the phone and and the deputies are here, you know, but they and the sheriff would, I'm sure, weigh in on this and agree with. They don't patrol and enforce the laws inside the city of Monroe. So I just want to, again, manage that expectation.

I have another thing. So I think last year we did a lot of good work. Since the city manager, Lisa Hollowell and her staff and the rest of the city staff did some really good work gathering information about the homeless population and the unsheltered population. And I would like to know the data from that information that we receive, what are our next steps from that work? We did a lot of good work gathering information. I would like to know what the plans are, what information was gathered, what are the next steps from all of that great work that we did a year ago to gather all that information to figure out who the population is and where they are and how we're serving. I think it's important that we come up with innovative ideas and programming and resources to support our community in this time of need to make sure that we're doing our job as council and staff to make sure that we're just not out here doing, gathering information, but we're actually putting it into work. So I'd like to know where we are in that process and what are the next steps for that.

Councilman Guy, I'll tell you that That was a tremendous effort on the part of staff to conduct that homeless population survey census. It had never been done by the city before. We do have some really good data. It's a little bit aged now. We'll be glad to recap that for you and provide that to you. the the purpose the the main purpose of doing that was to to validate what what actually is the number or close to the number um so you know because we really didn't know so and maybe it's time to freshen that up we can have a discussion about that whatever we do one of the main things is consistency

And whatever we do, we're going to have to be consistent on it.

All right. So, Mayor, if I may, one other thing here. um two things one one off top of what we're just talking about but if you notice the ball field lights over here on they usually come on about eight o'clock and stay on until about five o'clock in the morning uh and and that is a temporary measure until we get the other street lights up running and all that kind of a thing. So if you notice the ball light's on over there late at night, it's just an effort to brighten up the area and make it safe for people that are walking through there. The other thing that I'd just like to mention, and again, managing expectations, and forgive me, I don't want to give a civics lesson here or anything like that, but in the state of North Carolina, the General Assembly gives certain responsibilities and powers to the county. They have a public safety mandate. They also, one of the other big mandates they have is public health. They also manage the mental health programs, not manage the actual programs, but the way North Carolina does mental health these days, there are contracts with mental health providers, and it's a really complex task system. And the county staff manages through that services for Union, all of the residents of Union County. And lastly is social services. Now those three items are not the purview of municipal government in North Carolina. Certainly public safety is with police and fire. And public health is, to a certain degree, very limited scope. So limited that one of the main items that we're responsible for that impacts public health is solid waste removal. So your trash pickup. If you didn't have trash pickup, what would that look like across the city and the spread of disease and animals and everything else. So we have a limited role in that. But as has been pointed out, there are things that nobody else is responsible for except the city of Monroe. We take ownership of that. We're going to whatever direction we get from city council and the things that we already know we're responsible for to take care of as staff we're going to do. This is this is going to take a broader community solution and it's going to it's going to have to include the county is going to have to include the nonprofits around the county is going to have to include the churches is going to have to include the private citizens who are interested in this and it's just not a one size fits all and you know somebody with the city of Monroe comes up a great idea, and that's what gets done. It's managing expectations here. This is a community issue. It has to have a community solution.

Well, I think the good news is that we do have the bully pulpit. We do have the dais. We do have a microphone. We do have a loud voice. So we can always make the ask, you know, and let the citizens step in and ask too. So I understand what you're saying. Appreciate that.

Okay, any other comments? I know we've just gone through a lot. We've listened to a lot of our constituents out here. We know that there's a lot of concern. As we said before, we are not here to fix homelessness. We're here to help our community make sure that everyone feels safe. Okay, that's everyone. All right. After hearing the concerns of our people, council, is there anything else? If not, I will entertain a motion to adjourn. I have a second. Ms. Julie?

Okay.

All those in favor? Thank you all and have a good night.