Zoning vs. the Good Samaritan

How labyrinthine zoning rules restricted homeless shelters during the pandemic

- By Christian Britschgi

WHEN INTERFAITH SANCTUARY purchased an old Salvation Army building on State Street near downtown Boise, Idaho, in early 2021, it seemed like a dream come true. Everything about the property made it a perfect fit for the nonprofit's new emergency homeless shelter.

The only thing the organization needed to turn that dream into a reality was a conditional use permit from the city. That required talking to the neighbors. And that proved to be a problem.

The visceral opposition of nearby residents to Interfaith Sanctuary's shelter plans turned what should have been a permitting process of a few months into a bitter conflict that stretched out for over a year and put the entire project in jeopardy.

We are stuck, Jodi Peterson-Stigers, the executive director of Interfaith Sanctuary, told Reason in February. All of these hopes and dreams are written. The architects have designed the whole thing. We have a contractor. We have complete estimates. We have a security team. We have everything we need to move forward except for the conditional use permit.

The loss of the new shelter building would be a real blow to Interfaith Sanctuary and the people it serves.

Even before COVID-19, the organization had been bumping up against the limits of what it could do with its existing cramped emergency shelter. The sudden appearance of a deadly infectious respiratory virus didn't help the situation.

We use every nook and cranny and this pandemic has made it very difficult, says Peterson-Stigers. The shelter had to slash its capacity from 164 people to 140 just to allow some modicum of social distancing.

A temporary influx of federal homeless funding, however, allowed the heretofore privately funded Interfaith Sanctuary to house those displaced from the shelter at a rented out Red Lion hotel. Soon enough, it had placed over 100 people there.