Bloomington mayoral primary forum: Are we scared of being the best at taking care of the less fortunate?

At a Tuesday evening event for mayoral hopefuls in the Democratic Party’s May 2 primary, moderators from Heading Home of South Central Indiana quizzed the candidates about housing for low-income residents and homelessness.

The hosts also flipped the usual script for part of the event.

Each candidate had submitted one question for the audience to answer on arrival at the venue—Crestmont Boys and Girls Club on the north side of town. The questions were accessible through a QR code that appeared on a handout at the reception table.

Out of the roughly 100 people who attended, 58 responded to the three questions.

Co-moderator Leon Gordon, who is administrative director for Bloomington Housing Authority, reported a perfect 50-50 split for the question submitted by Don Griffin:

Are we as a community scared of being the best at taking care of those that are less fortunate?

Griffin then gave his take on the response to the audience poll question, followed by Susan Sandberg  and Kerry Thomson.

To aid understanding of remarks from candidates, by way of background:

• One Heading Home maxim is that homelessness should be “rare, brief, and non-repeating.”
• Griffin’s campaign catchphrase is “Believe in Bloomington.”
• Beacon, Inc., which was formerly known as Shalom Community Center, offers services that include a day shelter, an overnight shelter, a community kitchen and street outreach. Wheeler Mission operates a homeless shelter off West 3rd Street.
• The Stride Center is a diversion facility that’s meant to be an alternative to jail and emergency rooms, for people with substance use and mental health disorders.
• Hoosier Hills is a food bank.
• Heading Home is a member of the Built for Zero  initiative, which takes a data-driven, approach to measurably ending homelessness.

Don Griffin:

You know, I think that my whole “Believe in Bloomington” means that we find a benchmark and we do the best at the things that are important to us as Bloomingtonians. And I think we’re scared to be the best at taking care of folks with mental health and substance abuse and unhoused issues.

I think we’re scared that it will bring in more people that will also seek our assistance. And that is scary for some people—even folks who are working in the industry, who are already overworked and underpaid. And that’s one of the reasons why we need to get ready. If we’re going to do this, we need to do it the right way. And I think that scares a few people. That’s what I think.

Susan Sandberg:

I’m not sure that “scared” is the right word here. I know in my experiences both in working as a case manager and doing social service work, and working closely with many of the nonprofits who do here in the community, I have a sense of pride about that. I’ve always bragged about the fact that Bloomington is a generous community. It’s a caring community. We care for our people. I think what I wish other cities would do throughout the state is do an equally good job of using their resources and their community strengths to take care of their individuals.

Because let’s not mistake it: When you are a community that cares and you do provide a lot of services, you’re going to attract individuals from other communities who come here. I started to say in my last answer, one of our issues is a capacity issue. I mean, we can be such a caring community that we don’t have the capacity now to take care of all of the issues that maybe other cities and towns are sending our way, because they know when they come to Bloomington, they’re going to have some food security—because of Community Kitchen and Hoosier Hills and Mother Hubbard’s Cupboard. They’re going to be able to get health care, because …it used to be called Volunteers in Medicine—now it’s HealthNet.

We do have shelter opportunities. We do have Heading Home. We do have Beacon, Wheeler, the Stride Center. We are a tremendous community when it comes to that. And I wouldn’t change that. But it is creating some issues. So I’m not sure “scared” is the word. We can’t deny that that’s happening.

Kerry Thomson:

Think the 50-50 split is likely a representation of the fact that our community does care. And we want to be really good at this. And we also are a little bit scared, that if we get too good at it, then we are going to be attracting people.

But what if we believed we actually can solve the problem? What if Built for Zero really does work? What if working together, we can create a system, where we can have people who are unhoused for just a brief and non-repeatable time—I think we can do that. But we have to work together. And we have to work with the other communities, so that they understand the resources they need to help the people that are already in their communities.

Tuesday’s forum was co-sponsored by: Community Foundation of Bloomington & Monroe County, United Way of Monroe County, South Central Housing Network, Bloomington Multi-Faith Alliance, IU Political and Civic Engagement (PACE), South Central Community Action Program.

The Heading Home initiative is a partnership between the city of Bloomington, Monroe County government, the Community Foundation, and the United Way of Monroe County.

A team from CATS was on hand to record video of Tuesday night’s forum, which lasted about 90 minutes. When it’s available online a link will be installed here: [CATS video: March 28, 2023 Heading Home mayoral forum]

[Note: The reporter is married to Mary Morgan, the director of housing security for Heading Home of South Central Indiana, and co-moderator of the forum.]