Residents discussed how the city should address street homelessness during a special city council meeting on Wednesday after it introduced the topic during a meeting last month.
After discussion and reading detailed notes from the previous session, the council chose what they determined to be the most important problems in the community and created one short-term and one long-term action plan to discuss in six different small groups at the meeting Wednesday. The short-term plan is to expand public restroom hours to be open 24/7, and the long-term plan is to revise the Unified Development Ordinance — which governs land use in the city —to add single room occupancy buildings and change the definition of “family” in the ordinance.
Council member Courtney Daily said the council is focusing on having more accessible restrooms in the community after discussion at last month's meeting consistently showed there was a need for restroom access.
The council found multiple public restrooms around the city, including Bloomington Police Department Substation Suit and the Switchyard Spray Pad, but discovered that there is a need for more security in these areas specifically due to vandalism and other issues raised. Daily said the city suffers from a staffing shortage in patrol making it difficult to hire more security.
“The city council does not have the authority to add more restrooms,” Daily said, “We can only support the mayor's office.”
The restrooms were also found to be far from where most unhoused individuals stay.
Shortly after council member Sydney Zulich explained the council's long-term plan, Zulich said the council is working to revise the UDO to add single room occupancy buildings as an allowed use.
Single Room Occupancy is a building where individuals can rent rooms but share bathrooms and a kitchen. This would offer a low-cost option for individuals or couples moving out of homelessness or being diverted from homelessness, Zulich said.
Bloomington currently has a similar system in the UDO called Residential Rooming House where individuals are provided lodging, with or without meals, that is occupied for periods of 30 days or longer. The SRO would allow for this in more areas. This plan could potentially not blend into existing neighborhoods due to zoning restrictions and may cause problems in parking, noise and messiness Zulich said.
Zulich explained the second revision is to change the definition of family in the UDO to tackle housing distribution problems. Currently, most zoning districts allow for only up to three “unrelated” individuals under the age of 55 to live in the same dwelling.
Zulich said that there is no clear definition of family, and it depends on what family means to the people in Bloomington.
After discussion of the two plans, the group divided into six different discussion groups led by council members to discuss two different questions: “what is important as we consider the options?” and “what actions would best meet our needs and community values?”
After an hour of discussion, the group came back together and shared closing thoughts. Attendees shared that the small group method worked well for them to communicate with their peers.
When asked if they learned a different perspective from the small groups, the whole room raised their hand to agree.
“Revision is greatly in need, and I am hopeful,” an attendee said. “My prayers will be that something will be done, we need action.”
Daily said the council is serious about addressing street homelessness, and said that though a lot of people believe the council is just talk and takes no action, they have a great willingness to work and support the mayor’s office.
