Morning, gang.
At an explosive Greensboro City Council meeting last week, council members sparred with the board chair of the Interactive Resource Center, now operating as a near 24/7 refuge for the city’s unhoused.
Business owners, church leaders, and council members say the center has become unsafe and unhealthy for both the area and those experiencing homelessness. The council is cautious about further funding without a plan to shore the place up. The center’s leadership say it is overwhelmed by demand, underfunded, and the target of a campaign by politicians and developers to push the unhoused entirely out of a rapidly revitalizing downtown.
I was there when IRC first opened as a day center back in 2009, reporting on it for the News & Record. It felt like a hopeful place then—limited in scope, but addressing a real problem in tangible ways. People experiencing homelessness could get their mail there, take a shower, do laundry, get help finding a job and permanent housing. What I saw in the last two weeks, after multiple trips to the site and talking with some of the folks who depend on it, was very different.
Much of what I saw with my own eyes was disturbing—drug dealing, sex work, screams of both conflict and untreated mental illness, broken bottles and discarded needles, more than one person in a wheelchair sleeping on the street or under the eaves of a nearby church to stay out of the rain.
But those things should be disturbing. They should make us ask questions. Those of us in a position to help, should. And those we elect should work with organizations like and well beyond the IRC to figure out how we best do that.
That means both adequate funding and insisting on accountability. If, like me, you have for years seen people who are unhoused driven from public spaces like stray dogs by both business owners and police in this city, you already know why they all seem to have coalesced around one place and that place is struggling.
Rents and evictions are on the rise in the city and so is homelessness. Much of the new housing that has come online or will soon is priced well out of reach of even working-class families, to say nothing of those struggling just to stay off the streets. Greensboro may be “Greensbooming” and its downtown may indeed be a wonderful place to live, work and play. But that clearly isn’t benefitting everyone.
Our lead story this week looks at the tension between the long-held dream of a booming downtown and the grim reality of the people on its very edges who feel as though they’re being pushed out completely. In a major city, even one that often feels like a series of interconnected suburbs, that sort of tension is always with us. What we do with it is an important—and ongoing— conversation.
—Joe Killian
Downtown Development and A Center for the Unhoused Collide
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Bingham Park Meeting Postponed, but Celebration May Be Premature
Last week, we urged you to read this in-depth story from our partners at Triad City Beat about the ongoing controversy over how the city will handle contamination at Bingham Park and whether the solution will re-open wounds over the White Street Landfill.
On Thursday, the city announced the council’s climactic meeting on the issue, originally scheduled for tonight, would be postponed.
The Southern Coalition for Social Justice, which has been pushing for a solution beyond White Street, wasted no time in declaring victory. It issued a press release titled “Greensboro City Council Bows to Community Demands for More Input Over Bingham Park Toxic Waste Removal.”
“The Greensboro City Council has cancelled its July 23 meeting on the contaminated waste from the Bingham Park cleanup project in response to extensive joint community organizing in opposition,” the coalition wrote, “and it will consider options beyond taking toxic waste from one community of color and dumping it in another.”
“We are pleased the Greensboro City Council has finally listened to the passionate community advocates calling for greater consideration for the Bingham Park remediation efforts,” the coalition wrote. “By agreeing to postpone its special meeting, city council members have more time to not only consider the multiple options for remediation, but to continue to hear and meet with residents.”
“This decision shows what solidarity and organizing can do,” the group wrote.
Not so fast, city sources and elected officials told The Thread this week. While the council postponed its meeting, it didn’t do so because of community demands and those making the decision don’t seem to have had a radical change of heart.
“I think it’s premature to declare victory on anything,” said Councilwoman Sharon Hightower. “We’re just doing our further due diligence and some of us felt like we needed some more time to hear from the experts.”
Hightower said she and the rest of the council have always been open to whatever the best option is for Bingham Park, but she still believes the most practical solution is the White Street landfill.
“Right now as it stands, if I honestly believed it would be a true harm to the community, I wouldn’t support it,” Hightower said. “But I’m not a science expert. I have to rely on individuals who are and I put trust and faith in them. We’ve hired the best experts possible and the state is out there looking at this as well. I have confidence in the process and that we are getting the best advice. We’re just taking our time making sure we have all the information.”
As of this week, she sad, her position hasn’t changed: “I think we’re still headed where we were.”
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What We’re Reading
Sold on a Promise: If our story about Greensboro’s Interactive Resource Center left you with a lot of questions about what is being done to address homelessness, you’ll want to check out the first installment of “Sold on a Promise,” a two-part investigative series jointly produced by BPR News, WFDD, and one of our sister publications, CityView in Fayetteville.
Finding Their Footing: Though it’s not always recognized, Greensboro’s place as a home to immigrants and refugees is a big part of the city’s identity. Worth your time this week: a story from our partners at Triad City Beat about Afghan refugees making their way and finding their place here with the help of other refugee communities.
Congregational Canine: Listen—it’s already been a heavy week. So on the way out of this newsletter, I’m urging you to go read “Dog is Love,” a great story from O. Henry magazine’s summer dog issue about Chloe Grace, Sedgefield Presbyterian Church’s new congregational canine. Trust me. It’s gonna help.
Read this newsletter online or contact The Thread team with tips and feedback at greensboro@theassemblync.com.
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