City Councilmen Zack Ferrell and Rodney Muterspaw, first-year council members, attended the Butler County commissioners meeting last week, then updated fellow council members Tuesday night.
“We have a crisis on our hands,” Ferrell told his peers. “Middletown simply never will get ahead if we continue taking on everybody else’s problems.”
Ferrell said Middletown is willing to do its part, but the city can’t continue to bring in homeless services.
“We don’t have the people,” he said. “We don’t have the staffing.”
He and Muterspaw told the commissioners basically the same thing and City Manager Paul Lolli told the Journal-News the city will “absolutely not” approve the expansion of transitional living centers. “We don’t have the resources to deal with it.”
“Some people will say, well, you’ve got this group who is running it, these types of facilities cause an increase in city services, in police, fire, EMS and public works,” Lolli said. “We just don’t have the capability to absorb the issues and problems they do create.”
Mindful Healing Centers already has a location in Middletown on 1st Avenue and Rasmus told the Journal-News the plan was to expand their services with the location on Clinton Avenue. The MHARS board intends to spend $287,422 to help with capital costs to fix some issues like asbestos.
Rasmus told the Journal-News on Thursday he and his board are not ready to drop the plans because he needs to hear the concerns city officials have first-hand. He said he is supposed to meet with Lolli this week.
“I’m open to talk to anybody about it and talk about programs, recovery housing and what recovery housing is,” Rasmus said. “I just want to talk with them and see where the conversation goes. Obviously I’m going to respect their position and listen to them and we can see if we can find common ground or solutions to this issue.”
The contract with Mindful Healing is contingent on the provider getting necessary zoning and other approvals from the city.
Minutes from a city planning commission meeting in December 2021 show Mindful Healing was seeking a conditional use permit to relocate all but its administrative offices to 1009 Grove Avenue, which is very close to Hope House. Staff recommended denying the permit — because of its proximity to Hope House — but the majority of the plan commission approved it because they felt the services were needed. The project apparently never went to city council for approval.
Ferrell told the commissioners that the planning commission that originally approved the plans last year — records show they thought the service was needed — no longer supports the idea.
“They are not for this anymore,” Ferrell said. “We’re willing to do our fair share but we cannot have this drain on resources right now. We want to help, we are willing to sit down and have the conversation, I think everyone in the county and the state is.”
People often intertwine dealing with people with mental health and substance abuse issues — transitional living is designed to help stabilize people who are in the recovery process and provide wrap around services — with the homeless situation.
Ferrell reminded his council how much it has cost the city and county dealing with the homeless problem. The commissioners gave the city $3 million in American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds to clean up the Middletown Paperboard site that was destroyed two years ago when a homeless man started a fire that spread out of control.
City Council recently approved a $112,000 contract with Vickers Demolition in part to clean out the vacant Manchester Inn to reduce the chance of a squatter starting a fire, Ferrell said.
The city also spent tens of thousands of dollars this year to fund a warming center for the homeless and a recent fire in a homeless camp cost the city thousands of dollars, he said.
Dixon has said there is a concern if Butler County builds a lot of housing for the homeless and creates the mental health crisis stabilization center and other solutions to help the less fortunate, the cities will become “magnets” for non-county residents with issues.
Middletown police Chief David Birk has said Middletown has about 200 unhoused people, about 50% from other Butler County communities. Muterspaw told the commissioners Middletown “is a generous city” evidenced by all the help available like Hope House, SHALOM and the warming center and shelter.
“It’s a fact that most of these people that need help whether it’s mental services or homeless they’re not from our city and we know that, we’ve got agencies dropping them off because we are generous city and we do care,” Muterspaw said. “We are low income, we’re sometimes a poverty-stricken city, the kids in our school district eat for free for a reason and when we keep bringing more services in it just drains, we can’t do it.”
Muterspaw told his council Dixon understands homelessness is a county issue, not one limited to Middletown and Hamilton.
“He was very adamant about that,” Muterspaw said. “It was good to see him go to bat for Middletown.”
Dixon has always maintained this problem cannot be approached in a vacuum or on a community-by-community basis.
“Together we can make an impact and we have to look at combining our resources...,” Dixon said. “We have a senior levy, we have a mental health levy, we have home shelter money, we’ve got all different kinds of resources and we need to bring in the private sector, the big players they can contribute a million bucks or two million bucks, I think then we can really have an impact.”
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