Common Council Announces August 14th Consensus-Building Activity Session on Street Homelessness

The City of Bloomington Common Council invites housed and unhoused community members, relevant city staff, and social service agencies serving the needs of unhoused residents to attend a consensus-building activity session on street homelessness. The Council invites anyone with interest or experience to attend and participate in a collaborative discussion on this topic. The session will be facilitated by the Community Justice and Mediation Center.

The driving question of the meeting will be: “What actions should the city council take to address street homelessness and support the work of others addressing street homelessness?”

The Council seeks to achieve the following objectives in this session:

• To identify actionable policies, legislation, and funding priorities to address street homelessness.
• To build consensus on legislative priorities and budget allocations.
• To identify follow-up actions to make the above possible.

The Common Council values community input to help develop effective and sustainable policies to address street homelessness. “While Mayor Thomson has engaged in extensive discussions on the topic of homelessness ever since she took office (and before), the City Council can also play a positive role,” said Council President Isabel Piedmont-Smith. “This session will help us to identify how we can use the tools of the Council to help our unhoused neighbors as well as the community as a whole in the face of this growing national problem.”

The Council will hold this session on Wednesday, August 14th at 6:30 pm in City Council Chambers (City Hall, 401 N. Morton St.), in lieu of its Regular Session meeting. Please consult the Council’s webpage for more information or email [email protected].