Continuously serving Kosciusko County since 1854
Editor, Times-Union:
A shelter vs. a hotel isn’t the point; a shelter is a last resort in a crisis that the town could easily prevent. The shelter itself is not supposed to be Plan A; it’s there as a safety net if the other resources fail. Those resources are not supposed to fail intentionally. Employment connections are important, but they do not replace stable housing or prevent eviction. We should be doing everything possible to prevent that trauma in the first place. The Mission can be an important resource, but it cannot replace prevention when arrears are still small enough to resolve. Prevention is cheaper, more humane, and more effective than response.
“...we are not responsible and have no bearing on the rising costs of rent...” Regardless of who's responsible for housing costs, the trustee is responsible for mitigation, that is, the trustee’s statutory role. While compliance with standards is vital, are we really doing everything we can within those standards?
In your own response you stated “many more people come in to pick up applications and never return because they are unwilling to fill out the application”, “Many individuals refuse to fill out the application or supply us with the required information.” If a significant number of applicants are unable to return the paperwork, the conclusion is not moral failure, it’s a process design failure. That’s not an opinion. That’s operations.
The proper response to address that starts with basic operational accountability questions:
Is office access realistic if the office is open only two days per week, by appointment only, and during hours inaccessible to hourly or multi-job workers? Are applications available online?
What accommodations are provided for people without printers, phones, or a stable internet connection? Both for the application itself and for digital-only documents? Is staff available to help print or scan documents? Are applicants assisted with forms? Is the process psychologically safe for people in crisis?
We all agree that rules exist. The question is whether the township is doing everything allowed under those rules to make access possible. This response suggests they are not. When lots of people start but don’t finish, that’s not a character flaw; it’s a process bottleneck. The law and SBOA guidance point toward helping people complete it, not using incompletion as the end of the story. How we allow the most vulnerable members in our community to be treated is who we really are, regardless of how it looks on paper.
We have a fantastic opportunity in this community with the resources already available.
By focusing on prevention, we could not only nearly eradicate homelessness here, but also be the frontiers that show the rest of the country how it’s possible. We have the power to save lives; let’s use it so people can stabilize, recover, and live safely in their community. The bottom line is: Evictions hurt people, and cost money. This is one of the rare times when morals, ethics, and finances all align to the same course of action.
Evan M. Carter
Warsaw, via email
