The Jacksonville City Council threw up a roadblock on a housing development project aimed to provide long-term supportive housing to the homeless.
A resolution authorizing a $200,000 contribution to the Windsor Homes project on Tendick Street at the site of the old Hillcrest Estates trailer court died due to a lack of a motion on the resolution during the city’s regular business meeting Monday night.
The city council previously approved the contribution on December 11, 2023 when Windsor Homes applied for a 90% matching grant from the Illinois Housing Development Authority to build the project. However, during the FY24 round of grants, Windsor Homes was denied the grant. Windsor representatives returned to the city council back in August to reassure the funding from the city in order to take another shot at the grant in FY25.
Monday’s workshop session drew a capacity crowd in the Jacksonville City Council Chambers. Windsor Homes Chief Financial Officer Amanda Cagwin and Fifth Street Renaissance Director, who will manage the housing project once it’s built, Penny Powell addressed the city council and the public with concerns and questions for over an hour and fifteen minutes. Fifth Street Renaissance, based in Springfield, took over the management of the housing after Locust Street Resource Center stepped away from the project earlier this year after restructuring in their company and Locust Street’s administration saying that they did not have the personnel to support the project once it was due to open.
Cagwin attempted to address several social media posts and a survey that circulated prior to Monday night’s meeting that showed a majority of citizens in the area were opposed to the project being built. Cagwin says the opposition was likely a result of misinformation being spread about what the project is and who it is exactly for: “I just want to make sure that everybody understands that this is permanent supportive housing. So there is a difference between this and a homeless shelter. When it comes to the homeless issue, there are shelters, there is transitional housing, and then there is long-term or permanent supportive housing. Permanent supportive housing, which is what we would like to build, provides assistance services to help people achieve housing stability. It offers customized services on site and off site to address the root cause of homelessness. It is a true home. So, anything that has been disseminated referring to this project as a shelter and any of the concerns that go along with that is kind of a null issue because we are not building a shelter. It’s permanent supportive housing. It’s a very different animal than a shelter.”
Despite the lengthy exchanges of back-and-forth questioning with the crowd and with the city council, many of the citizens in attendance still were not convinced that the project is a good idea for the city. The comment period also drew a question from South Jacksonville Village President Dick Samples, who asked if the development would be property tax exempt. Representatives for the city and for Windsor Homes said it would be considered tax exempt. Samples then pointed out that the village and the city would be subsidizing the project with police and fire protection as well as city utilities to the 22-unit project.
Phil Langdon, who said he has attended the city’s previous two workshop sessions where Windsor has presented the project, said that he remains unconvinced of the viability of the project due to safety concerns, vetting of the potential tenants, and where exactly those tenants will come from: “After these two presentations, I remain less convinced, quite frankly that is a good idea. I’ve learned now that the property manager won’t be on site 24-7. That’s a little unsettling. The property manager will be a graduate of the program, and that really deserves our admiration. That’s commendable, but the manager wouldn’t be particularly equipped for emergency services, or property management, or crowd control. I also was unconvinced of the determination of residency. We have asked how you would determine who would be admitted. You said there are various ways…we check various ways and aspects of them, but that wasn’t a sufficient answer to me. Again, I think your heart is in the right place, but I feel as if the city council is being unfairly pressured into making a decision that’s really a business decision for someone else.”
Langdon’s remarks drew applause from the capacity audience. The only person in attendance who spoke in favor of the project was Matt Fritsch. Frisch, who is a Jacksonville resident, said that he has worked for Windsor Homes for the last several years and had been on projects previously built by Windsor in Jacksonville – including the Downtown Commons and Stonebridge Apartments. Frisch noted how the Stonebridge Apartments turned a former abandoned nursing home facility riddled with squatters was turned into the current apartments today.
The main qualms from city council members was where would the $200,000 come from if the city were to chip in the funding, and where exactly would Windsor Homes and Fifth Street Renaissance use that money in the project. The other main concern was the number of constituents who had voiced opposition to the project to city council members leading up to the meeting. Ward 5 Alderman Don Cook also pointed out to those in attendance that Midwest Youth Services had pulled support from the project in recent days.
With the city pulling funding support for Windsor’s second application to IDHA, Cagwin says that the project can still move forward, but there is more work to be done: “To fill the gap of the loss, well, we will look for either more funds from other stakeholders or go through financing.”
Ward 2 Alderwoman Lori Large-Oldenettel who voice dissent to the project because of the holes with the financing and similar questions about vetting individuals and long-term viability, offered a different path for the city to fight against the burgeoning homeless population.
Oldenettel says a new city position should be created strictly to work on coordination of services and housing for those experiencing homelessness: “I think there are a lot of individuals in our community that are unhoused that do need options. So often our first phone call is to the Jacksonville Police Department to address those issues. I think that can be intimidating for some of the individuals that they have to work with the police. If we had someone who could serve more as a liaison to the police department and to some of the other nonprofit organizations that work with these individuals, perhaps we could make a better transition or help find them suitable housing, living accommodations that make sense for them or other programs that maybe we don’t have in our own community but they might be aware of in another community where we can help get them transportation and the help they need to help facilitate a next for them.”
Cagwin says that Windsor will be submitting a preliminary application for the grant to IDHA the first week of October. She says once Windsor secures the final pieces of funding for the project, a full application will then be submitted in November. Grants will then be announced sometime in February 2025.
It was noted that a now-defunct Homelessness Steering Committee put together last year as part of the Healthy Jacksonville initiative was working on a 5-year plan for the City of Jacksonville and the surrounding area to bring homelessness to “functional zero,” meaning that when a person is made homeless, they are out of that situation in 30 days or less, and never have to return. The committee was made up members of the city and county government, Jacksonville Police, and 12 other community organizations.
Statistics gathered from that committee that were produced by work by the Quincy Continuum of Care service region, which Jacksonville and Morgan County are a part of, 6% of those that are homeless in the county do have some form of income, with 40% of those having a steady job. According to those statistics from 2022, approximately 180 adults were considered homeless in the local region, and there are 114 children that are considered either homeless or have little to no home security, with 61 of those directly in Jacksonville School District 117.
The Homeless Steering Committee went dormant after Jacksonville Memorial Hospital had a restructuring in November 2023. An attempt was made to keep the committee going, but a lack of agreement among stakeholders on the best way to proceed with the 5-year plan and who would manage it eventually put the committee’s work at a stand still.