| Hillborough
Delays Shelter for Homeless
by Erin Macbeth
While controversy surrounds plans to relocate
Chapel Hill’s homeless shelter, a nearby
community is debating building its first.
Downtown Hillsborough is as warm and charming
as any small North Carolina town, but a recent
decision by the town’s planning board
is leaving some residents out in the cold.
The board voted Tuesday night to delay a
proposal to allow homeless shelters to operate
in town.
Unlike Chapel Hill, Hillsborough has never
had a homeless shelter of its own. And, although
the homeless population may not be as visible
as in Chapel Hill, some residents say it
is a problem that needs to be addressed.
“There’s a particular guy that
I’m thinking about, I don’t know
him, but everyday on my way to work, I see
him out on the streets, and my heart just
bleeds because he has no place to put his
head at night,” said Emily Pratt, a
Hillsborough resident. “If we had a
shelter, we’d all be doing him a favor
and helping someone for a change.”
Others see no problem at all.
“We’re around a lot, and I certainly
haven’t seen much evidence of homeless
here,” Jim Parsley said. “It’s
not obvious to me that we have a serious
homeless population here.”
Prior to last month’s meeting, the
board drafted an ordinance to address the
issues that currently prevent a homeless
shelter from being built in Hillsborough.
But board member Bryant Warren said the board
decided Tuesday to put the proposal on hold
for at least three additional months.
“All of us on the Planning Board feel
like that is something we need to do,” Warren
said, “but we just need to make sure
it’s right. We need to make sure that
all the “I”s are dotted and “T”s
are crossed before we ever go along with
it.”
Warren said the board plans to look closely
at a provision that would allow a homeless
shelter to be built within 1,000 feet of
commercial property. As board members continue
to ride the fence on this issue, one of the
biggest concerns is that a shelter could
be built in the town’s historic district.
Warren says that it’s clear that there
is a homeless situation that needs to be
addressed. What isn’t clear when or
how that will happen. Until the town board
makes up its mind, it may be another winter
on the streets for Hillsborough’s homeless.
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