Homeless and their belongings are pictured near the Chadakoin Riverwalk last week. P-J photo by Christopher Blakeslee

The opening of a new Code Blue shelter in Jamestown is a good next step in dealing with the homeless problem in Jamestown.

That isn’t to detract from previous shelters the city tried to open with non-profit partners in 2022. But this different approach recognizes a couple of lessons have been learned from the winter of 2022.

First, it’s difficult for a city that doesn’t have a Mental Health or Social Services department to create shelters for homeless who have mental health or addiction issues. While the city provided a lot of the start-up funding and volunteers tried to provide supplies and staff the shelters, the 2022 effort fizzled when volunteers found themselves ill-equipped to deal with the underlying issues feeding the homeless crisis. Unpaid volunteers who are being asked to provide services that require training were put in a bad position two years ago. Volunteers can’t be put in a similar position, nor should church buildings that are often not created to be social services hubs.

Second, Code Blue shelters need dedicated funding. While the city can help with one-time expenses through things like Community Development Block Grant allocations or ARPA funding until that funding is spent, it still isn’t in a position to pay for additional positions to fulfill a mandate it hasn’t legally been given. There was a limit to how far the city’s 2022 Code Blue shelter could go. This new partnership, we hope, is housed with entities that have legally been given authority to deal with mental health and substance abuse.

We don’t know many details yet, so like those concerned with the homeless crisis we will wait and see what form the new shelter takes. But it’s a positive development that behind-the-scenes work is turning into visible progress. For all the talk of collaboration as we deal with the homeless, it’s worth noting that collaboration doesn’t mean there will never be disagreements. Quite the contrary, when having tough discussions there are bound to be disagreements. True collaboration is resolving those disagreements so that we can still take positive steps – like getting a Code Blue shelter open before the snow flies.