A church’s dream to build a three-story complex to house 80 to 100 single men who are on the edge of homelessness faced a thrashing Monday night at a community meeting on the project that devolved into screaming and expletives directed toward the church’s pastor and the project’s developer.
The development at Mountain View Church of the Brethren (2823 N. Cole Road) sought to provide a home and support network for those who had substance or alcohol issues, social skills issues or are on probation or parole.
“The existing church would own and manage the property with the goal of assisting those who can hold a job but are close to going into homelessness and willing to improve their work skills, character discipline, social skills and spiritual life,” according to a city of Boise summary.
The complex would build 27 dorms with three or four bedrooms each, a car repair shop and space for skills development, training, alcoholics anonymous meetings and programs from nonprofit organizations. The buildings would transform a vacant, triangular parcel on the church’s property near the Idaho Capital Asian Market.
But community members objected to the church’s plans Monday, speaking over each other and hurling accusations at Don Morrison, the church’s pastor, and Steven Neighbors, who is leading the development of the project with Boise-based Strategic and Operational Solutions.
Some accused them of discriminating against non-Christians for only wanting to accept those who had made declarations of faith.
Others argued that the 2-acre development would bring crime to the neighborhood and forcefully accused its backers of putting their children and nearby students at risk if they allowed sex offenders into the program.
“You’re gonna bring in 100 people, and it takes one — one — to look at my little girl the wrong way and it’s too late — too late, buddy, so don’t even go there,” a resident who lives nearby said. “Don’t even go there.”
Several schools are within a mile of the property, including Fairmont Junior High School and Mountain View, Valley View and Morley Nelson elementary schools in the Boise School District. Cole Valley School’s elementary campus, St. Mark’s Catholic School and Northview Montessori Preschool and Kindergarten are also within a mile.
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Morrison and Neighbors said the requirements to live at the complex would be high and that every tenant would need to be approved through probation and parole, thoroughly vetted and interviewed.
According to Morrison, they’ve already been working with people who fit this bill — the complex is just the next evolution for the church.
“This is just a next step for what we’ve been doing,” Morrison said. “We’ve been doing this for years and years and years.”
Neighbors acknowledged the community’s concerns after the meeting and said he’d like to host another community meeting before going to the next step with the city.
“We’re going to try everything we can to address all the concerns we heard last night,” Neighbors told the Idaho Statesman on Tuesday.
Creating a space for those close to homelessness
The people the church is looking to help, Morrison said, are doing everything they can to be legitimate, productive members of society but can’t find housing. The church is not looking for violent offenders, he said.
Requirements include being a Christian, working through specific programs, attending training events and being employed.
“They have to be able to hold a job and pay a pretty lean, pretty low dorm fee,” Neighbors said. “We want them to be able to stand on their own feet.”
Neighbors said the cost of dorms depends on what the final cost of the development will be, but the church is aiming for $400 to $500 per month. Another $50 per month would go for a parking stall, which would give access to a car repair shop.
“We can’t help them if they can’t keep a job,” Neighbors said.
Neighbors said the church can’t help those with mental illnesses and that if any tenants cause problems, the church could remove them. There would be an onsite manager 24/7 along with dorm managers and counselors who would meet with tenants regularly to make sure they are making progress.
The development is still a long way out. Morrison said it would likely be years before the doors opened, if the church can get through all the layers of the city’s process first. It would likely need approval from the Planning and Zoning Commission, Design Review Commission and City Council before getting the green light. Each of those steps would include public comment.
The church also still needs to acquire funding for the project. Neighbors said he expected the total development to cost about $7 million.
Despite the blowback from Monday’s meeting, Morrison said, he still wants to hear comments on the project and community members are welcome to contact the church through its website (www.mtndove.org).
Building a boot camp on the Boise Bench?
The primary goal, Morrison and Neighbors said, is that the tenants are working to improve themselves.
“They have to be willing to be disciplined,” Neighbors said. “We’re not going to be boot camp but we’re going to be along those lines.”
According to Neighbors, the church would help tenants develop “community skill sets” and they would be required to do community service together — such as maintaining the grounds and dorm units or helping with projects in the neighborhood.
“We’ll have barbecues, we’ll have a little field for sports,” he said. “We want to have all kinds of little training opportunities.”
Neighbors said homelessness is a growing issue and that this program could help those who want to take the next step toward stability.
“We think there’s a coming housing crisis,” Neighbors said. “We see a growth in people breaking social rules, so we’re trying to address that as a Christian church.”
Boise’s changing neighborhoods
Many of the nearby residents who opposed the development weren’t against the church trying to help people. Instead, they objected to the church building the complex near schools in a residential neighborhood that already has similar programs nearby.
Iron Sharpens Iron, a transitional housing program, is based out of the building next to Mountain View Church of the Brethren while Rising Sun Sober Living is less than half a mile to the northwest.
Some residents said the church was involved with those programs, which Morrison denied.
“We are not in any way, shape or form financially invested in Iron Sharpens Iron or any transitional housing in this area,” Morrison said. “None of them. Do we partner with them? Do we welcome the people to come here? Absolutely.”
Morrison said that it’s part of the church’s mission to help others, such as with food or clothing. They have a small shower upstairs that is stocked with towels for those without homes.
But some residents say that the changes to the neighborhood, and nearby programs already operating, are too much.
“We love our neighborhood,” said Tammy Payne, who lives nearby with her husband Rick. “We’ve lived in our neighborhood for 43 years … it’s always felt safe, but not anymore.”
Payne said that it has been difficult to watch the neighborhood change from farms to apartments over the past four decades and that the church’s development would continue that trend.
“It’s not comfortable anymore,” Payne said.
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