Joe Twidwell, treasurer, and Shayla Moore, executive director of the Warming Shelter, said at a press conference Wednesday the shelter will proceed with its plan to close Oct. 1.
Mason Dockter
SIOUX CITY -- Mayor Pro Tem Dan Moore floated a "very preliminary" proposal for the city to give $150,000 to the Warming Shelter, but that isn't enough and the shelter will still close on Oct. 1, Warming Shelter Treasurer Joe Twidwell said Wednesday.
Moore said the Sioux City Council would need to give its blessing to this tentative offer, which he said was intended to bridge the gap for this year.
Twidwell said the homeless shelter needs a recurring commitment of $500,000 per year, not a one-time $150,000 payment.
"For so long, we've been seeing donations not increasing to keep up with the expenses, and so -- we've just made the determination, if we can't get a five-year commitment from people, then it's just not sustainable for us," Twidwell said. "We need to get that long-term commitment."
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Moore recalled Twidwell making the same point in their private conversations. Any longer-term pledge of hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars, Moore said, would probably need to be addressed in city budget hearings with community input.
"I said, 'So, any kind of funds that the city would present, that's just not going to do it?' And he said, 'Not unless it's for a five-year commitment,'" Moore told The Journal.
"I'm not sure where the community stands, with using that kind of taxpayer money," he added.
The Warming Shelter's board voted in late August to close the shelter due to a lack of financial support from the community. It costs approximately $725,000 per year to operate the shelter. The shelter set up a GoFundMe page in hopes of raising $250,000; they've fallen far short of that, with $17,260 contributed at the time of this writing.
Twidwell called the press conference Wednesday at the shelter to reiterate that it will close in a few weeks, and castigated civic leaders and churches for their reticence to give.
"We're very disappointed, because both the city and the county, and area churches -- not all of them, some area churches support us," Twidwell said, adding that "there's 197 churches in the community," and their support on the whole has been "very minimal."
Moore and Twidwell both said the scramble has begun to avert a catastrophe this winter.
"By giving notice that we're closing Oct. 1, the other agencies can try and figure out how they're going to cover the shortfall when the first blizzard hits in December," Twidwell said.
"The city is now working with the Warming Shelter to relocate the people who are in there now," Moore said. "So, we're trying to find alternate housing, or shelter, for the ones who happen to be in the Warming Shelter now."
Twidwell once again pushed back again on rhetoric suggesting that the Warming Shelter exacerbates homelessness in Sioux City, that it "acts as a magnet to draw people to the community." Roughly 80 percent of the Sioux City homeless were born and raised here, he said.
Other communities in the region do better, Twidwell said.
"Sioux Falls, their city government gives $120,000 a year, and they're jumping to $140,000," he said. "And Omaha provides similar levels of support to their shelters down there."
The cost borne by taxpayers will be significant, Twidwell said -- he pointed out that a single arrest for public intoxication entails expenses of about $132 an hour for the police cruiser and another $100 for jail costs. Medical facilities will likely be inundated, Twidwell said, and sanitary facilities are lacking.
"There are no public restrooms in downtown, or public drinking fountains, other than in the library or city hall," he said.
Unlimited Access to the Sioux City Journal Jared McNett
Jared McNett is an online editor and reporter for the Sioux City Journal. You can reach him at 712-293-4234 and follow him on Twitter @TwoHeadedBoy98.
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