Before restoring penalties for ordinances, council should address these uptown issues | Opinion

Charlotte City Council is poised to restore criminal penalties for six ordinances, largely in response to a call to improve “quality-of-life” issues uptown. These ordinances — things like public urination, open container and sleeping “prone” on a park bench — are already on the books and currently people can be fined, but council will decide whether to restore the ability of police to arrest people.

While the ordinances under consideration do not exclusively relate to homelessness, many are directed at unsheltered homelessness and will certainly disproportionately impact people sleeping outside.

This conversation is not a new one for Roof Above, where I am CEO. In fact, our Day Services Center, previously known as Urban Ministry Center, was born from tensions between the interests of the uptown business community and the faith communities that were serving people experiencing homelessness.

When Urban Ministry Center founder Dale Mullennix talks about this time, he often quotes Rev. Jim Wallis: “We can find common ground only by moving to higher ground.” Together, the faith and business communities found a better and more substantial way to serve our neighbors in a housing crisis while meeting the business interests, by creating one centrally-located site to access many services.

Today, hundreds of our neighbors come to our Day Services Center for a daily lunch, access to showers and laundry, mail services and a place to be known and connect to help.

It feels like we are yet again in a moment to seek higher ground. Without question, when there are hundreds of people unsheltered in a city, not only is the experience traumatic for the people experiencing homelessness, it creates community and public health challenges. We share in the vision of a city where no one has to sleep outside, where challenges with public urination and defecation don’t exist, and where parks and park benches do not serve as a makeshift home base for very vulnerable people.

The question is: How will our community choose to address these challenges?

Charlotte is at its best when we do not lose sight of each other’s humanity. In this conversation, we must recognize the significant behavioral health and life challenges facing our neighbors in homelessness; we must recognize that our emergency shelter system is operating at capacity; and we must recognize the limits and potential harms of a law-enforcement response to a much deeper issue.

Roof Above is encouraging the city to move with urgency to address the challenges in uptown by investing in five areas:

▪ Access to public bathrooms

▪ More street outreach with a focused team uptown

▪ Increased investments in our emergency shelter system, including expansion to create specialized non-congregate (meaning that people have their own rooms) emergency shelter with a focus on very vulnerable people

▪ Continued support for and expansion of CMPD’s pilot of the CARES team

▪ And of course, housing. Data consistently confirms homelessness is a housing issue, so our solutions must also focus on housing. We would like to see the city double the Housing Trust Fund

If city council moves forward with the criminalization of these ordinances, we ask that for the four ordinances that will most impact our neighbors experiencing homelessness — public urination/defecation, behavior in public parks, open container, and soliciting from the street — a 12-month sunset provision be added, giving our community the opportunity to evaluate the impact of the ordinances and allow time for investments in the more life-changing solutions outlined above. In addition to the sunset provision, if council votes to criminalize these ordinances, we advocate for a delay in enforcement to allow for an adequate communication time frame to those who will be most impacted.

The conversation our council is having is not unique to Charlotte. As housing prices continue to rise across the country, particularly in thriving and growing cities, we see homelessness rise as well. May Charlotte continue our history of seeking higher ground in ensuring we are making space and creating opportunity for all members of our community.

This story was originally published February 5, 2024 at 2:15 PM.