Shelter opening reduces vagrancy, Iowa City police say

IOWA CITY, Iowa (AP) - Vagrancy reports have decreased 95 percent since the opening of a temporary winter homeless shelter in a former grocery store, Iowa City officials said.

At an informal meeting Thursday of the Johnson County Board of Supervisors, officials gave an update about the shelter, which opened Jan. 5 to house people ineligible to stay at Shelter House, the county's permanent shelter. The Iowa City Press-Citizen reports (http://icp-c.com/15DPQN5 ) that people are deemed ineligible if they're intoxicated, refuse to follow program rules or have been previously evicted.

Phoebe Trepp, program development director for Shelter House, says the temporary shelter has regularly been at or above capacity. When the temporary shelter is full, she says some people are allowed to stay in the Shelter House lobby.

"We're not turning people away," she said.

Officer David Schwindt said as a result, calls of vagrancy are few and far between.

"Citizens are feeling safer now that they aren't finding people sleeping in the hallways of their apartment building," he said.

Both Schwindt and Trepp said the temporary shelter has prompted the proposal of a new program that would include a permanent Iowa City facility with 10 to 15 beds for the chronically homeless in Johnson County.

"It shows, on a much smaller level, that we can bring people into a group setting with less burden to police and from the public," Schwindt said.

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Information from: Iowa City Press-Citizen, http://www.press-citizen.com/