Ability Housing plans for Springfield.

[sheclown]

Ability Housing is purchasing a historic apartment building on Cottage Street and proposes to turn it into apartments for the formerly homeless population in Jacksonville.

Hello Springfielders,
.
.
Many have heard by now the news we received at the end of last week - that a new homeless program is planning to be placed in our neighborhood by Ability Housing. The news article was featured in the previous Block Captains Update last week.
.
A Community Meeting with Ability Housing has been scheduled for Thursday, 3/03 @ 6:30pm at the Womans Club building (210 W. 7th Street). Thank you to SIAA for use of their venue.
.
Conversations have been had with Ability Housing  Executive Director, Shannon Nasworth, about the planned project. All of the grant materials have been reviewed in detail. Two grants were awarded to Ability Housing for separate projects.
.
There is no jumping to conclusion here, these are the facts from the grant and communications with Ability Housing:
.

The first grant awarded to Ability Housing is for a 53 unit project on the west side known as "Wiley Road." They will receive $5 million in funding. According to Ability Housing, this project is more intensive and will house the homeless with the most serious issues.

.

The second is for 139 Cottage Avenue, in the Springfield historic district They are receiving $1.2 million. The property was for sale at $250,000. There are no legal impediments to closing: no zoning change or city approval of ANY kind is required. The property is not sold yet, but is under contract. The actual sale may not take place for weeks.

.

Ability Housing did not seek any community input before planning this project in our neighborhood. It was only made public once they won the grant, and the residents & stakeholders found out by reading about it in the newspaper.

.

Cottage Avenue has 12 studio apartments and Ability's intent is to house one individual, or at most one couple, in each apartment.

.

ALL residents will be moving in directly from homelessness. They will be referred via the Homeless Coalition and they will be subject to a lease. It is unknown who will pay the lease, possibly a 3rd party or form of public assistance.

.

Background checks will be lenient, allowing various types of FELONY convictions.

.

There will be NO on site supervision.

.

People living on the streets all over Jacksonville will be moved into our neighborhood through this program.

.

Any services the residents receive will be from third party providers, NOT Ability.

.

Ability Housing expects most tenants to have significant substance abuse and/or mental health problems, and will participate in "risky" behavior.

.

There is NO requirement that tenants participate in treatment.

.

Because it is technically not a group home, they cannot have rules that require that the residents do not consume alcohol. Residents will NOT be evicted for drinking, etc. or even for being arrested.

.

Ability Housing states that they have projects like this all over Jacksonville, and that they have always been welcomed by the residents, and do not understand why Springfield residents are concerned. In fact they suggest Springfield residents have a bias against poor, homeless people. They suggest residents should be more open minded to additional housing for high-risk and disadvantaged populations. They state that projects like this have been shown to increase property values in the neighborhoods in which they are located. They dismiss residents concerns by saying that we already have homeless people living here and in Downtown.

.

However, this project can easily be distinguished from their other projects.

.

This building was recently renovated and under contract to and could have been sold to any number of interested private investors who would have rehabilitated it and rented it to employed individuals at market rate. It is located on a street with many homeowners who have invested significant money in their homes. Needless to say, the same applies to our entire historic district neighborhood.

I'd like to share my personal thoughts about this -- I do not state PSOS's thoughts, just my own.

1.) The community was not consulted.  Normally no big deal, but as it involves federal funds, community input is huge.  Ability Housing should have taken a page out of Operation New Hope's book.  ONH is building new and will house more individuals than Ability's project.  You don't see people upset about this project to this extent, why?  Because Operation New Hope planned for community input in the entire project. 

2.) Supervision is important.  Perhaps they could be persuaded to rent one of the units to a building super -- not necessarily someone who "treats" the other residents, but someone in charge who the community can talk to if there are minor problems.  Apartment buildings have them all the time.  This would alleviate some legitimate concerns.

3.) The building is being used!  HOORAY.  This is a good thing.  Modifications won't be able to be made without HPC consent.  This gives the community a say in any plans for the exterior.

4.) Alcoholics and recovering drug addicts are a protected class.  No one, not the city, not the community, not anyone can prevent Ability Housing from renting to them. 

5.) These are regular rentals -- there is nothing that Ability Housing needs to do to appease the neighborhood, but perhaps they could be persuaded to join in community events.  Springfield has a great need for volunteers.  Let Ability Housing know that when one enters Springfield, one is fully engaged.

So, at the end of the day:

Ability Housing needs to be sensitive to the community's concerns and hold meetings -- if they are using federal funds it is a requirement.  They have not done so.  This does not look good on them.  They need to make concessions to counter-act this.  Have a building super.  Get involved in the neighborhood -- be a shareholder here.

[JaxUnicorn]

Very well said sheclown!!  Especially the following:

So, at the end of the day:

Ability Housing needs to be sensitive to the community's concerns and hold meetings -- if they are using federal funds it is a requirement.  They have not done so.  This does not look good on them.  They need to make concessions to counter-act this.  Have a building super.  Get involved in the neighborhood -- be a shareholder here.

[iloveionia]

I concur.

[sheclown]

Apartment complex may become homeless project

Springfield residents say they don't know what's going on

Author: Heather Leigh, Mobile journalist, hleigh@wjxt.com

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -

Residents in Springfield say they've been blindsided by a nonprofit organization looking to renovate a 12-unit apartment complex and turn it into a housing project for the homeless.

Ability Housing of Northeast Florida says it received a state-funded grant to renovate the units at 139 Cottage Avenue, but residents are concerned about who will be living there once the building is finished.

Ability Housing says it's only trying to improve the lives of former veterans who are looking for a second chance. But people in the area say there has been a major lack of communication, leaving community members confused about what the organization's plans are for the building.

Members of the Springfield Preservation and Revitalization group say they didn't hear about Ability Housing's plan to take the complex, renovate it and turn it into a homeless housing project until last week.

JoAnn Tredennick, vice president of the SPAR Council, said the organization plans on only accepting the "chronically homeless." She said the chronically homeless are described as people with diagnosed mental illnesses, and drug and substance abuse problems.

"They need to take this project somewhere else," Tredennick said. "This neighborhood is already jam-packed with these sorts of facilities and uses. We need economic diversity to be a viable and sustainable neighborhood."

read more:

http://www.news4jax.com/news/apartment-complex-may-become-homeless-project/25270790

Ability Housing and SPAR plan to hold a private meeting Tuesday night to get more information on the project.

SPAR will hold a community meeting at 6:30 p.m. Thursday at the Woman's Club building on West Seventh Street to discuss the project.

[Noone]

I wonder if this was 2014-6 that was in RCD yesterday. I was at RCD because because Scott Wilson told me that 2014-190 the Southbank Riverwalk funding was going to be in RCD and Finance. 2014-190 wasn't even on the agenda for RCD.  That legislation got stalled in Finance.

But anyway 2014-6 Ord approp $1,200,000 of HOME Investment Partnership Program Income for Admin($60,000) & CHDO Dev Prog ($1,140,000) to Leverage Completion of Ongoing projects ($727,463.33- 1St Proj & $412,563.67 for 8th St. Proj).

Councilwoman Lee had some huge concerns about this and it seems that $7,000,000 of NPS money is not enough  and all of this appropriation is being used to shore up the shortfall. Mrs. Lee had concerns that the money wasn't being dispersed fairly. Elaine Spencer was at the podium and Mrs. Lee kept telling her that she wasn't to blame. Welcome any correction and this may not even apply to this thread. The legislation was deferred.

[sheclown]

I would think the 8 th st project is Operation New Hope project

[BridgeTroll]

First Coast News...

http://bcove.me/68zva19m

[sheclown]

Homeless housing plan raises alarm in Springfield

By Steve Patterson Wed, Apr 2, 2014 @ 4:49 pm | updated Wed, Apr 2, 2014 @ 7:40 pm

Plans to house homeless veterans in a Springfield apartment building alarm residents who say their historic neighborhood north of downtown Jacksonville has enough troubled homeless people without opening a place where their behavior and drug and alcohol issues would not be monitored.

"We are already inundated with these people moving through this neighborhood all the time," said JoAnn Tredennick, vice president of the Springfield Preservation and Revitalization Council.

Tredennick and her husband are so upset by the project's impact on their properties they've hired a lawyer.

SPAR has scheduled a neighborhood meeting Thursday evening with the nonprofit Ability Housing of Northeast Florida to talk about Ability's plan to take over a 12-unit apartment building on Cottage Avenue.

Ability's executive director said her agency's track record is a good one and neighbors are not reacting to the facts.

"There's a lot of misinformation out there," said Shannon Nazworth, Ability's executive director. She said her organization regularly houses homeless people in apartment complexes it runs and has never faced his type of neighborhood push-back.

The nonprofit manages 255 rental units, mostly in the Mayfair Village complex on Beach Boulevard, Renaissance Village on Franklin Street and Oakland Terrace Apartments on Franklin Street, all places that were run-down before Ability bought and renovated them.

"We're taking a problem and turning it into an asset, and we've done it in every neighborhood we've come into," Nazworth said.

The building on Cottage Avenue is different, said Claude Moulton, a Springfield lawyer whose email questioning Ability's plans quickly passed around the neighborhood.

"I'm familiar with some of their projects and I understand they did a good job. But this project is outside their mold," he said.

While close to half the tenants at some Ability projects used to be homeless, chronically homeless people — especially veterans — are the target audience for the Springfield building, an 85-year-old, two-story structure with brick facing.

Ability picked the building just west of Main Street because it's close to the Veterans Administration clinic on Jefferson Street, Nazworth said, as well as being near other facilities that could be needed, such as near Florida State College at Jacksonville's downtown campus, UF Health-Jacksonville hospital and bus lines and government offices.

Some of the same factors made Springfield a magnet a generation ago for facilities to serve recovering addicts, ex-offenders and people with mental or developmental disabilities, which the city eventually decided were concentrated there too much.

"The council finds there is a disproportionately large number of rooming houses ... group care homes, [and] community residential homes," read a zoning overlay the City Council approved for Springfield in 2001, banning any new examples of what it called "special uses."

But Ability says it's not planning anything that would be illegal. The building it plans to buy has 12 studio apartments now, and the only thing that would change is the tenants.

No one would supervise residents on-site like at a group home — and that seems to make foes even more upset about the project.

"We could have anywhere from 12 to 24 chronically homeless individuals placed in the middle of this neighborhood," said Tredennick, who with her husband owns rental property within a few hundred feet of the building. "....The chronically homeless who have mental illnesses and also have diagnoses of substance abuse or other problems."

Nazworth said her organization would screen people before they're allowed to move in, and would spell out in leases things that can could bring evictions like destruction of property or disturbing neighbors' peace, for example. She said Ability staff would talk to VA officials before setting screening standards.

Nazworth said Ability doesn't oversee tenants like a group home, but it does routinely connect them to case managers from other organizations that serve the same role. A tenant isn't required to use the case manager's help, she said, but he's approached about it again if problems like drug use are jeopardizing the lease. Tenants almost never refuse to cooperate when their apartment is at risk, she said.

Applications Ability filed for state grants acknowledged some people picked for the program could have mental problems or could be abusing drugs or alcohol, which Tredennick said amounts to "chronic behavior problems" that neighbors have a right to worry about. She said couples could remain together like in other apartments, so there could be more than 12 occupants in the apartments, but Ability wouldn't allow any roommates or other sorts of sharing of studios.

Nazworth said she expects VA employees would keep track of tenants at the Springfield site veterans with big mental health or medical issues. Ability would sign up other tenants if it didn't have enough veterans lined up to keep the building full, she said.

People who have had nowhere to live will try hard to keep a roof over their heads, Nazworth said, adding about 90 percent of the people at other Ability apartments are still there after a year.

A closed-door meeting Tuesday night between Ability officials and SPAR's board did not settle neighborhood concerns, said Tredennick, who said she and her husband had already signed up a lawyer to examine their options, regardless of what SPAR does.

"Our property and our tenants are very much at risk. This is really serious for us," she said.

Steve Patterson: (904) 359-4263

A public meeting about Ability Housing's plans for apartments at 139 Cottage Ave. will be held Thursday at 6:30 p.m. at the Springfield Women's Club, 210 W. 7th St.

http://members.jacksonville.com/news/metro/2014-04-02/story/homeless-housing-plan-raises-alarm-springfield

[sheclown]

http://www.actionnewsjax.com/content/topstories/story/Springfield-residents-upset-about-homeless-moving/xa7LvxBbNEa9t1EsMn3bCA.cspx

[Jumpinjack]

Well said, sheclown.
In our part of Riverside a home for teen delinquents with family problems was installed by the state. Over the time they were here they crowded the facility until it doubled in residents. Supervision was non-existent. Teens roamed the neighborhood skipping school and had no nighttime curfew. Their part in neighborhood crime from vandalism and car burglary was constant. A well respected elderly man was beaten in his own yard. Fortunately our councilman took on the state for lack of responsibility, a new director for the state division was hired and immediately took action and things have undergone a huge change for the better.   

Springfield and Riverside both know what it is to suffer from neglect and disrespect. A public meeting is in order immediately to show that AH hears the complaints and wants to do something for the community.

[sheclown]

1.) The community was not consulted.  The community meeting more than made up for this.  Ability Housing apologized many times.  Let's assume they didn't consult the community because they were afraid of a meeting such as this.  Apparently there is no requirement from the grant that the community be notified before hand. 

2.) Supervision is important. Apparently this is not going to happen.  I don't know what to say about this except that it will be in Ability Housing's best interest to keep an eye on the tenants.  I'm sure the neighborhood will.  I know the local churches will reach out to the tenants and offer entrance into their community and I would hope that the other organizations in the neighborhood will as well. 

3.) The building is being used!  HOORAY. 

4.) Alcoholics and recovering drug addicts are a protected class.  No one, not the city, not the community, not anyone can prevent Ability Housing from renting to them.  I've heard that the overlay has been violated.  This is not true as the city employees stated at the meeting.  I've heard that there will be challenges to the overlay -- this could be problematic for the neighborhood as they could end up with less rather than more.  The overlay cannot take away an individual's civil rights.  A local ordinance cannot override federal protections.

5.) These are regular rentals -- there is nothing that Ability Housing needs to do to appease the neighborhood, but perhaps they could be persuaded to join in community events.  Springfield has a great need for volunteers.  Let Ability Housing know that when one enters Springfield, one is fully engaged.  Ability Housing has offered to contribute to the Security Fund -- this is great news.  Okay, what else?  Can you help with the Main Street situation?  Can you use your contacts to help the local orgs get funding? 

I've heard some say that the meeting on Thursday was something to be proud of -- well, this girl isn't proud to have witnessed that at all.  Actually, I was quite horrified by the ordeal.

I understand the frustration, the sense of outrage, the concerns involved.  But I do not accept the incivility I witnessed -- especially by people I love.

[strider]

Any claim that the project as proposed by Ability Housing is not a legal use is incorrect.  Even the city has stated that.  No amount of wishing on anyone's part is going to change that.

On top of that the proposed residents are a protected class under ADA and Fair Housing.  Any special considerations given to them to be first in line for the rentals or the reserving of these rentals for them is simply considered reasonable accommodations.  To hurt them, or to prevent or refuse those reasonable accommodations can and most likely will end up in Federal Court. 

There was a way for the community to get in front of this.  Instead, the same old leadership used the same old rhetoric and here we are.  A community split and one that looks as bad as possible to the rest of Jacksonville.  What does the leadership of Springfield think people in the rest of Jacksonville are going to remember more?  That they have too many "special uses", of which this project is NOT one of, or that they wanted to turn away Heroes?  Perhaps some of them need to stop and think about that before the next time they use misinformation and innuendo to turn some normally good people into a frenzied mob.

I wasn't ashamed of the people as much as  I was once again ashamed of the leadership, or in some cases, the lack of sound leadership.  I had hoped for more from some.

[chris farley]

Quote
There was a way for the community to get in front of this.  Instead, the same old leadership used the same old rhetoric and here we are.  A community split and one that looks as bad as possible to the rest of Jacksonville.  What does the leadership of Springfield think people in the rest of Jacksonville are going to remember more?  That they have too many "special uses", of which this project is NOT one of, or that they wanted to turn away Heroes?  Perhaps some of them need to stop and think about that before the next time they use misinformation and innuendo to turn some normally good people into a frenzied mob.
UnQuote
Again you are making assumptions and saying very unkind things.  SPAR simply facilitated the meeting.  They did have a survey form to be filled out by members, the form asked for members' opinions.  I understand and believe that the info fliers were done by individual Springfield residents on their own volition.  The count of facilities was done by a resident.  To say it was a frenzied mob is truly nasty.  I was not happy that a couple of people shouted out, but that does not make a mob.  Terrance Jones certainly is not and never is part of a mob.  I feel it is the right of people who actually live in Springfield to say their piece. In the past we have had very questionable appearances before the City Council on issues, with no real backlash.  Incidentally the word veterans came very lately to the issue.  The word was mentioned once in the grant, but by no means was the main thrust.

[jaxbuilder]

Springfield has so much potential and is a community ripe for all kinds of development. It is so sad to me to read about yet another transitional housing facility being forced on the residents of that community. The comments regarding the city not being able to stop Ability Housing are laughable. The City has absolute authority in approving or rejecting the zoning as commensurate with the intention of Historic Districts like Springfield. If this proposed facility was to be located adjacent to EverBank Field, Atlantic Beach or even San Marco Square it would not be permitted to go forward. Same zoning yet different outcome. I applaud Springfield for protecting their community and hope they prevail. Builders are hard pressed to invest capital into Springfield when the city continues to destroy property values with such ferocity. That is the very definition of poor city planning. Which translates into lower property values, lower property tax revenues and more blight for downtown Jacksonville.

[strider]

Quote
There was a way for the community to get in front of this.  Instead, the same old leadership used the same old rhetoric and here we are.  A community split and one that looks as bad as possible to the rest of Jacksonville.  What does the leadership of Springfield think people in the rest of Jacksonville are going to remember more?  That they have too many "special uses", of which this project is NOT one of, or that they wanted to turn away Heroes?  Perhaps some of them need to stop and think about that before the next time they use misinformation and innuendo to turn some normally good people into a frenzied mob.
UnQuote
Again you are making assumptions and saying very unkind things.  SPAR simply facilitated the meeting.  They did have a survey form to be filled out by members, the form asked for members' opinions.  I understand and believe that the info fliers were done by individual Springfield residents on their own volition.  The count of facilities was done by a resident.  To say it was a frenzied mob is truly nasty.  I was not happy that a couple of people shouted out, but that does not make a mob.  Terrance Jones certainly is not and never is part of a mob.  I feel it is the right of people who actually live in Springfield to say their piece. In the past we have had very questionable appearances before the City Council on issues, with no real backlash.  Incidentally the word veterans came very lately to the issue.  The word was mentioned once in the grant, but by no means was the main thrust.

I find it amusing that I never said it was SPAR and yet everyone is quick to defend SPAR.  Part of the problem is that I have not felt SPAR was THE leadership organization for Springfield for a very long time.  In this instance, they are not the leaders of the community for this issue.  In fact, I actually think the current president of SPAR, Bill Huff, to be a reasonable voice in this.  I do not fully agree with his stance, but he is presenting it in a reasonable manor. As it should be. Not as the mob acted Thursday night.  Not as the leadership of this issue caused the mob to act Thursday night.

That fault is not so much in what they want or in this case, do not want, it is in how they presented themselves.  The leadership choose the wrong tactics in this and that will be seen to be very true as time goes by. The phrase "shooting oneself in the foot" comes to mind.

What all need to remember is that a 150 or so people were there.  Not all were caught up in the hype and there are certainly reasonable people talking about this issue amongst themselves that we have yet to hear from. 

I fully understand the frustration some feel.  I take offense at how some are behaving and how that behavior is presenting all of Springfield to the rest of Jacksonville.