PEORIA, Ill. (25 News) – The nearly $400,000 in taxpayer money spent to put Peoria’s homeless population in motel rooms has now run out, and move-out day is Friday, August 1.
Over the winter, the nonprofit LULA rented nearly 50 rooms at a local motel to take people off the streets as the city’s encampment ban began taking effect. The goal was to point people down the right path to find permanent housing.
Since then, LULA has served over 140 people. But, as the motel project comes to an end, 50 people will have to look to their cars, friends, or the streets for a place to sleep.
Two people who have been unable to find housing in Peoria for at least one year showed measurable and progressive change over the last seven months with the help of LULA and its co-founder, Kshe Bernard. Marcie Franks and Wesley Ramirez both have all the documents to apply for housing with Phoenix Community Development Services and the Peoria Housing Authority.
“When I first started [with LULA], I didn’t think I was going to make any progress on it, but then I got ahold of Kshe and she helped me get my birth certificate, social security card, everything I need,” Ramirez says.
The only problem is that no housing units became available for Ramirez and Franks before the end of LULA’s motel project.
Ramirez says he has some friends who agreed to let him stay with them until housing opens up. On the other hand, Franks has nowhere to go and will likely find a quiet place in the woods; despite the city’s encampment ban, which could result in jail time.
“It’s illegal now. You can’t camp, can’t put a tent up, you can’t lie your head down in any abandoned building; somebody will call the cops. You’re going to get a ticket, you’re going to get fined, and possibly go to jail, just for being homeless,” Franks says.
But, Franks won’t be the only person from the motel project who will have to go back to the streets. Bearett Quast says it’s either camping or continuing to live in his girlfriend’s Dodge Dart with her.
Quast says the biggest way others can support people in his situation is by having compassion and trying to understand that they have nowhere else to go, have no food, and don’t have access to showers.
“It’s sometimes just a series of unfortunate events. It’s like you do everything that you’re supposed to do to not end up here, and then you’re like, ‘Oh my god, I’m here,’” Quast says.
Bernard knows the money spent during the motel project was temporary, but she has become persistent in raising the money for a brick-and-mortar building to make her efforts more permanent. She believes the success stories from the last seven months show city council members the need for a non-congregate shelter.
“We demonstrated a need, we demonstrated a willingness to do it, and we demonstrated, most of all, that it could be done, and that when people engage in these services, they do move toward stability and more stable housing,” Bernard tells 25 News.
Bernard says the number of fatal overdoses and preventable deaths have dropped during the past seven months.
Council member Bernice Gordon-Young voted against issuing fines and possible jail time for people who set up camp on public property. She says that as people return to the streets, staff need to ensure they’re maximizing the resources already established within the city.
The at-large councilwoman said her colleagues are constantly discussing solutions to reduce homelessness. She says they can’t build their way out of it, but believes collaboration, addressing mental health, and re-evaluating shelter barriers could help.
“[We need to] include the people that we’re trying to help by bringing them to the table and asking, ‘What do you need?’ And making sure that the case management piece is in there, because if we don’t do that, we have not gotten to the root cause of this,” Gordon-Young says.
In the meantime, Bernard says LULA staff and volunteers will go back to the work they did before taking on the motel project, which is to meet the unhoused population where they are to keep them safe and engaged in services.
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