On Wednesday, residents of Madison's Greenbush neighborhood met to discuss a proposal for Porchlight Inc. to operate a transitional housing program in a property at 1009 Vilas Ave., which is one block west of Park St. in between Meriter and St. Mary's Hospitals.
Porchlight, a company that runs several programs aimed at curbing homelessness and associated problems, is seeking to purchase the property to replace a previous transitional housing shelter at 315 S. Henry St., which they recently sold to a developer.
The concern over this shelter is whether it will bring an undesirable crowd to the neighborhood, and consequently deflate property values. Not to be confused with a drop-in shelter, transitional housing is low-cost housing intended to help homeless individuals make the jump from homelessness to stable living. Included in this program are live-in residents and consistent monitoring to ensure residents don't break the moderately stringent rules.
Nonetheless, residents have a legitimate reason to be concerned, especially as the shelter would relate to property values. Regardless of the safeguards preventing loitering or misbehavior, the stigma associated with a homeless shelter is enough to deter a prospective homebuyer, a rare breed these days, from moving to the Greenbush area.
Porchlight operates over 20 such transitional properties, suggesting they have the luxury of flexibility of where to have a property, not to mention they had the luxury of selling the previous property. The issue at hand is not whether they should have this transitional housing but where.
The Greenbush Neighborhood has more to lose if the City Council votes to approve a loan for the 1009 Vilas Ave. building than Porchlight does in finding a different property. The previous property at 315 South Henry Street was in a more appropriate area; Porchlight should look for an equivalent area for the new property.
If the City Council votes to approve the loan for the Greenbush property, which is not farfetched, Porchlight should strive to take stringent measures to prevent misbehavior. Although alcohol was not permitted at the previous S. Henry St. building, Porchlight has yet to decide whether to allow alcohol at the new property—they must carry the substance ban over to the new building. In addition to an alcohol ban, there should be a strict misconduct policy to prevent neighborhood disturbances.
Although transitional housing programs are beneficial for the rehabilitation of Madison's significant homeless problem, Porchlight should have a better awareness of what effect their shelters can have on a neighborhood in terms of property values and disturbances. If the City Council approves the shelter, Porchlight should take every measure to alleviate the concerns of Greenbush residents.
