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Immanuel Shelter board explains efforts

May 25, 2017

Each year the Housing Alliance Delaware, formerly the Homeless Planning Counsel of Delaware, participates in the HUD Point in Time Survey to determine the number of homeless in our state. "On the night of Jan. 27, 2016, 1,070 people experienced homelessness in Delaware. This count includes adults and children sleeping in emergency shelters, weather-related shelters (such as Code Purple sanctuaries), domestic violence shelters, transitional housing programs, on the streets, and other places not meant for human habitation."

(1) Of the 1,070 individuals experiencing homelessness in the 2015-16 survey, the Immanuel Code Purple Shelter served 14 percent of the total adult homeless population in Delaware. During that season there were 111 guests, 78 were males and 33 were females. This year 2016-17 season, Immanuel served 144 guests - a whopping 30 percent increase.

Homelessness in Sussex County Delaware is growing. Homelessness is not about who someone is; it is what they are experiencing. Major factors contributing to homelessness at the beach include seasonal employment and lack of affordable housing.

Immanuel Shelter has provided a Code Purple seasonal shelter in Sussex County since 2010. With humble beginnings in the fellowship hall of a church, Immanuel was open on weekends. Now as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit charity, Immanuel provides sanctuary to adult men and women experiencing homelessness seasonally from December thru April. Immanuel's goal is to prevent weather-related, life-threatening injuries from exposure to harsh weather and frigid temperatures.

Immanuel is now seeking to expand and provide a full-time emergency shelter for roofless individuals looking for a leg up and a chance to find support for employment and more stable housing.

Immanuel has worked hard to become a part of the community and to support our roofless and homeless neighbors. A year ago this past January, Immanuel sought a special-use exemption for a building in West Rehoboth to develop an emergency shelter and was denied. This past week, Immanuel once again went before the Board of Adjustment seeking a special-use exemption for our pending building purchase of the Faith Wesley United Methodist Church on Route 9. Again Immanuel is seeking to open a full-time emergency shelter for fully vetted individuals seeking help. Immanuel left the meeting with the board deferring a decision just as it had done last year.

Immanuel provided the Board of Adjustment with testimony and written evidence to support the shelter's request and to meet special-exemption requirements. There was expert testimony from a certified real estate appraiser that property values near shelters do not decrease. DelDOT provided a written decision to defer a traffic study because there would be minimal, if any, increase in hourly traffic.

Immanuel Shelter addressed policies describing the vetting and clearing process used to ensure guests have no warrants or capias and were not sex offenders. Finally, a representative of Preservation Delaware praised the commitment to improve the property and maintain the church front as a possible historical site. Despite factual testimony and documentation provided by Immanuel Shelter Inc., individuals opposed to the shelter maintained "they had nothing against the homeless, that they should have a place to go, just not near their homes."

In March 2017, the Delaware Senate introduced a bill creating a Homeless Individuals Bill of Rights which would essentially assure that "an individual's housing status should not be a basis of discrimination." It is sad that we need to establish a law to protect some of the most vulnerable in our society. We are plagued by preconceived fears and prejudices that keep us from seeing the homeless as those less fortunate. Instead, we assume that they are drug addicts, thieves and sexual offenders.

Immanuel's new emergency shelter goal is to improve the lives of homeless individuals by providing a temporary place of their own, resources, and some compassion. Shelter is a basic psychological need for human survival.

Janet Idema
president of the board, Immanuel Shelter

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