Residents Pack Committee Meeting to Discuss Downtown Shelter

The marathon session lasted over three and a half hours. It was called as a special session by Mayor Jim Schmitt to discuss the shelter's conditional use permit, but it turned into a discussion about the state of the homeless in Green Bay.

The Mayor has concerns about the homeless shelter at St. John's.

"It's not running the way it should," he told a packed committee room.

Monday night he called a special session to come up with a solution. There are concerns about the behavior of some of the shelters guests.

The shelter, St. John's, operates on a city issued permit. Mayor Schmitt said they could be in violation of the permit for admitting too many guests.

Green Bay Police reports over 30 calls involving the shelter or its guests since it opened in November.

The shelter says they've complied with the guidelines and don't want to turn people away in the cold.

Residents packed the meeting and shared their feeling good and bad about the shelter.

"I came to St. John's and experienced an environment like I've never seen at any shelter anywhere in my life," said one proponent.

"The reason their numbers are going up is because there are people that are coming from all over the nation because they know they can come here and drink, and no one will throw them out," said a resident.

Business owners had their own take.

"As a business owner, I am willing to bring these people, some of them, in and bring them into my place of business and show them what it is to do a day of work," said one.

"I bought into the business of coming downtown to own a business and run a business, and I have been run out of business," said another.

At the end of the meeting, the committee initially motioned to "recieve and place on file" the comments made Monday night, but the Mayor pushed back, calling that a do nothing motion.

In response, the committee instead moved to reinstate a task force on homelessness. In the end, Chairman Mark Steuer called the meeting a success.

"I think we took it and made it into, I don't want to say a larger problem, but atleast a larger venue that we can look at," said Steuer.

The City Council will have to approve the recommendation to form the task force, their next meeting is December 11.