Why Should Delaware Care?
Like most large cities, Wilmington has long been challenged by a large homeless population, but it has grown in size and need in recent years. Now, Mayor John Carney created a homeless task force with the goal of creating a set of recommendations to address homelessness in the city, but they have raised concerns from the community.
Wilmington’s Taskforce on Homelessness met on Monday to give the public a final opportunity to comment on proposals it will likely submit to the mayor.
But, during the meeting, few were satisfied.
Owners of businesses that sit near a homeless encampment, east of the Wilmington train station, spoke about what they said was a dire need for more action to address the unhoused population impacting their businesses.
Meanwhile, homeless advocates and other residents criticized the task force as not committing sufficient money and resources to address homelessness across the city. They also questioned whether certain proposals would result in an increased criminalization of homelessness.
Last week, the task force released its five preliminary recommendations for easing homelessness in Wilmington. They include temporarily allowing a tent community in Christina Park, until a village of “tiny homes” can be built to replace the tents; opening another day center facility for unhoused individuals; and getting local developers to build additional units of affordable housing over the next decade.
Claire DeMatteis, the task force chair and longtime public official who previously oversaw multiple Cabinet agencies, including prisons, during Carney’s governorship, said she will release a report with the group’s finalized recommendations by Sept. 22.
DeMatteis said the task force plans to vote on the final recommendations at its Sept. 30 meeting.
Business owners call for urgency
Six people with businesses, located around Poplar and Front streets said during the Monday meeting that their businesses are suffering because of encampments of people who live under an Amtrak bridge and in Christina Park.
Jim McLaughlin, president of Union Wholesale Company, said he is tired of customers coming into his building and saying, “It’s getting rough out there, isn’t it?”
Brendan Cooke, general director of Opera Delaware, said he has worked at the company for over 12 years, and has watched the homelessness situation deteriorate over the past 18 months.
Cooke said the opera company has experienced decreased ticket sales and a harder time attracting performers due to the perceived dangerousness of the area.
The business owners who gave public comment on Monday did not offer specific critique of the recommendations put forth by the task force. Instead, they spoke about the need for the city to address a growing homeless population in the area before they are forced to move their businesses.
“What was once a vibrant block is in danger of turning into a permanent encampment,” said Jacqueline Flowers, an employee at EDiS Construction on Poplar Street.
More than 1,500 people in Delaware are homeless, according to a count conducted by housing advocates earlier this year. The figure represented a nearly 17% increase over the previous year.
Advocates criticize the mayor
Homelessness advocates and people who have experienced homelessness also spoke at Monday’s meeting about what they said was a lack of specificity in the task force’s recommendations.
Wilmington resident David Burton said he has lived in transitional housing in the city, where he faced continued assumptions from police and other city officials that he was not going to work, or actively searching for another place to live.
“I’ve come to find out that being in transition in Wilmington is a little bit hard,” he said.
Burton urged the task force and the Wilmington Housing Authority to consider existing housing in the city’s possession that are vacant, instead of trying to start from scratch with the “tiny homes” village and other affordable housing options.
Oher speakers, including David Kindell, a volunteer with nonprofit organization Premiere Charities, said the committee’s recommendations fail to address root causes of homelessness, such as mental health struggles and drug addictions.
The task force’s preliminary recommendations do not include resources to address addiction or mental health issues.
Stephen Metraux, a University of Delaware professor who studies homelessness, said the city should hire a “homelessness detail,” that is experienced in working with unhoused individuals, and that could respond to situations with individuals when they arise.
Metraux and others – including community advocate Shyanne Miller and Episcopal Church of Sts. Andrew and Matthew Rev. Patrick Burke – also criticized Carney’s lack of direct involvement in the task force.
They took further issue with Carney’s comment to Spotlight Delaware last week that creating specific sections of Christina Park for tents might allow the city to ban tents from other parks and neighborhoods.
“To say that you’re going to create recommendations and then know that Mayor Carney has plans to ban encampments means that Mayor Carney has plans to lock people up,” Miller said.
Asked about these comments, Carney’s office said he and the task force have spoken with unhoused people, as well as residents and property owners, and they will continue to do so as the task force finalizes its recommendations.
“We’ve heard from many concerned residents who share that there are unhoused folks squatting in vacant houses in their neighborhoods or camping out in bus shelters,” Carney’s office wrote in an email to Spotlight Delaware. “This is not about criminalizing homelessness, it’s about enforcing the law that pertains to everyone, whether housed or unhoused.”
Miller and Burke also said the recommendations lack specificity, such as concrete goals about the number of people the task force hopes to transition out of homelessness, and over what time period.
Burke suggested that the city create a dashboard to track progress on addressing homelessness and serve as a hub that people could turn to when they are seeking housing resources.
Members of the task force largely did not respond to speakers’ critiques of the preliminary recommendations during the meeting. DeMatteis said the committee would take residents’ feedback into consideration as they finalize the recommendations and vote on them later this month.
The exception was Kim Eppehimer, a member of the task force and the director of the homeless services nonprofit Friendship House, who said that she does not view the task force as a permanent solution to homelessness in Wilmington. Rather, she sees it as a chance to start bringing people to the table whose voices have not been heard.
“I agree with many of you that this is an opportunity for this just to be the beginning of the conversation,” she said. “It’s not going to get solved just by this task force alone.”
Maggie Reynolds is a Report for America corps member and Spotlight Delaware reporter who covers rural communities in Delaware. Your donation to match our Report for America grant helps keep her writing stories like this one; please consider making a tax-deductible gift of any amount today by visiting https://spotlightdelaware.org/support/.
