The neighborhood has spoken. And the group that wanted to put an emergency winter warming shelter into a Boulder Hill church has indeed listened.
After a quick and aggressive backlash against Oswegoland Community House’s plan to open Neighborhood Church of the Brethren to Kendall County’s homeless population when the temperature fell below freezing, OCH is looking now to make that space into an emergency warming shelter for women and families instead.
Meetings are continuing this week with community stakeholders, said the Rev. Pat Fish, who leads Oswegoland Community House in its mission to create this emergency warming shelter in Montgomery, which they insist is urgently needed after PADS Kendall County closed down in 2020 and Aurora’s winter shelter is now taking only the city’s unhoused population.
Around 350 residents turned up a few weeks ago to an informational meeting about the center that quickly turned loud, disruptive and unproductive. The opposition has also been holding protests outside Church of the Brethren during Sunday morning services, as well as Fish’s church, Becoming Oswego, which helped run similar emergency warming shelters in Aurora the past couple of years.
Residents say they were kept in the dark for too long and had no input in the plan that would have put this shelter into their neighborhood and right next to Boulder Hill Elementary School.
OCH and church members admit they were not prepared for such an angry response, which led to the current revision that would include only women and families.
According to an update on the plan that was sent after church leaders met, the two groups recognize the importance of “listening to community feedback while also acknowledging the urgent need” for emergency overnight warming resources in Kendall County.
“Rather than allowing these challenges to prevent progress, we believe adapting the program …offers a responsible and meaningful path forward,” the statement continued.
Residents, however, are far from satisfied.
According to Lisa Cook, who founded an opposition Facebook group called Boulder Hill Voices, more information is needed on what “the long-term plans” of this revision could be.
“Residents want to know what assurances would be in place to prevent the shelter from eventually returning to the original model, expanding who it serves or operating beyond its proposed overnight warming shelter purpose,” she told me.
It really all comes down to location, Cook insisted, adding that opponents are not against helping people in need, they just don’t want the warming shelter next to a school in a residential area, “regardless of the population being served.”
Trust still seems to be a “big issue,” she noted, and that requires “more transparency, specific operational details and clear answers to the questions residents continue to ask.”
Fish says two meetings were held last week where community stakeholders – including school district, local police and fire and social service agencies – were asked to come up with solutions and alternatives for those in need of a warming shelter. But the “only suggestion received was to follow a COVID model and put people in hotels and motels,” he added, which is not financially feasible.
Fish is also concerned that protestors continue to gather Sunday mornings outside Becoming Oswego or Church of the Brethren, which he said intimidates those who want to attend services, including children.
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The pastor admits he’s frustrated and yes, angry, that even this revised plan to help homeless women and families is getting so much pushback. But he’s also “not surprised.”
It was never a safety issue, Fish insisted, but a reflection on “who we have become as a society” – fearful and biased toward anyone who is “a stranger in our midst, whether the homeless, immigrant, refugee or the incarcerated.”
It is, he continued, “a sad commentary on the world we are in.”
Another reality Fish addressed: Despite the continued opposition, the emergency warming shelter for women and families will open at Church of the Brethren this winter – likely after Thanksgiving – “but next year we will have to find another space outside of Boulder Hill to do this work.”
As for the 14 or so men OCH knows who will be left out in the cold, “we will still do case management and outreach,” he said.
“We are not here to fix the system. We are here to save lives,” Fish declared, then quickly added, “I am just praying for a mild winter.”