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Samaritan Inn looks to expand after rezoning OK’d: Homeless shelter hopes to add 60-unit family facility
File photo - The existing Samaritan Inn facility has rooms like this for families, but is forced to turn away thousands of potential residents every year. With this week's approval of a rezoned 15-acre plat nearby, the shelter could add a 60-unit building within 18-24 months.
By Chris Beattie, cbeattie@starlocalnews.com
The Samaritan Inn and its residents are on the way to having room to breathe a little easier – literally.
The McKinney City Council on Tuesday night approved the rezoning of a 15-acre plot of land near the homeless shelter that will allow it to add a new facility. The expansion, which Samaritan Inn executive director Lynne Sipiora says could open in 18 to 24 months, will provide temporary housing for 60 families.
“We have long needed a family shelter with more beds,” Sipiora said at Tuesday’s council meeting, attended by dozens in support of the expansion. “The need is increasing every year.”
Such residents come from all over Collin County, yet, for 28 years McKinney has essentially been the county’s only city to really accommodate the shelter. Its last expansion attempt came in 2010, when the Inn tried to build an 80-unit facility in eastern Plano, before rescinding the request after Plano City Council members expressed concern for how it would affect the surrounding area, the Dallas Morning News reported this week.
“Most people don’t want a homeless shelter in their neighborhood,” Sipiora said. “It’s that ‘not in my backyard’ syndrome.”
A similar objection arose in January soon after Inn officials approached McKinney about rezoning two lots a few hundred yards south of the shelter. The lots, zoned for light industrial use, needed to be planned development use for a possible expansion.
Several property owners of the nearby Powerhouse Business Center initially protested the rezoning request, worried the addition would devalue their properties. Their petition led city and Inn officials to redraft the ordinance request, requiring that the new facility provide six-month lodging (not “emergency” or overnight stays) for individuals without a violent criminal record and who’ve been drug- and alcohol-free for at least 30 days.
“Our main concern, when it boiled down to it, is what happens if something happens to The Samaritan Inn and it goes away,” said Bill Harlan, managing partner for the center, located directly south of the proposed zoning. “If it didn’t have restrictions on it, then it could become a chronic homeless shelter.”
Harlan, at Tuesday’s meeting, said that because of the redrafted ordinance, the petitioners now “are in 100 percent support of The Samaritan Inn.”
After several other citizens, including Inn residents and volunteers, also voiced their support for the rezoning, the City Council unanimously approved it.
Sipiora said the new facility will likely cost close to $5 million and thus will require an impending “capital campaign” that Inn officials haven’t yet worked out completely. Once built, the facility will help put a dent in the 3,754 people the Inn had to turn away last year – half of whom were children under age 10, and many who were “forced to live in their cars, sleep outside or join very crowded conditions with other families,” Sipiora said.
The Collin County Homeless Coalition’s most recent Point-in-Time Homeless Count reported there were 531 homeless individuals in Collin County in 2012, a 44 percent increase from the previous year. More than half the children identified were elementary age or younger, with the McKinney, Plano, Frisco and Allen school districts together accounting for more than 1,200 homeless or displaced students.
Future expansion, which the zoning now allows, could even better accommodate younger residents.
“Daycare is a huge issue for these families trying to get jobs and get back on their feet,” Sipiora said. “We would love to operate our own daycare for our own children.”
On the nearer horizon, children and their parents will at least have a temporary home at the new facility, which is to be designated for families and would allow the existing facility to house about 160 single adult residents. The shelter currently houses about 150 residents at one time.
Three or four new caseworkers would be employed to accommodate the increase in residents, she said, as each caseworker is assigned about 20 residents. The numbers – and corresponding necessities – continue to grow.
“We’ll never meet the need,” she said, “but this will be a significant improvement.”
As long as the shelter gets the support evidenced this week, particularly that of McKinney officials, the shelter could one day consolidate all facilities at one location.
“McKinney’s unique by nature, but it’s also unique by heart,” said Rick Wells, Samaritan Inn board president. “We’re on the verge of creating one of the greatest homeless shelters in the United States.”
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