A nonprofit that wants to build tiny homes on Springfield's southeast side faces more big hurdles after the Springfield City Council on Feb. 11 unanimously voted to withdraw a resolution to commit funding for the project's resource center. Ward 2 Ald. Shawn Gregory, who represents the area where the homes would be built, said he planned to take steps to revoke the previously approved zoning after the developer, Harvey Hall Sr., said he could proceed with the project even without the city's support.

"Your application doesn't say anything close to what you are up here describing," said Gregory as he addressed Hall. "It is also disingenuous to say this is a veterans' situation. It's not – you want it to be – but it's more of an unhoused situation."

Be Neighbors Affordable Housing for Veterans, Inc., a nonprofit organization, received funding from the Illinois Housing Development Authority in 2021 to develop and operate 18 tiny, 540-square-foot homes with what was billed at the time as a 1,200-square-foot education center in the middle of the community. A property at 2835 Stanton St. was rezoned for the development later that year.

The city was asked last year to commit $400,000 in federal Community Development Block Grant funds toward a resource center for the Be Neighbors development. At the time, a representative from the city's Office of Planning and Economic Development said that would serve as the 10% matching funds that IHDA required to receive its 90% funding. But the funding resolution was paused when neighbors spoke against the project during a Sept. 17 Springfield City Council meeting, saying there were too many unanswered questions about the development.

"You're saying you're going to put in 18 homes, no matter what all of these homeowners think. You got your zoning approval off of false information," said Ward 3 Ald. Roy Williams, who represents the area adjacent to the proposed project. "These neighborhood associations are not just saying no, but hell no."

Hall told the council that IHDA, which has already committed $4.8 million toward the tiny homes project, is now willing to waive the 10% matching requirement.

"IHDA decided to waive the 10% that we need to get for the project after they found out we were having a hard time with the City Council to get it passed, due to confusion," Hall said. "The confusion is, if the center is not built, the houses are still going to be built."

Eric Hanson, the attorney for Be Neighbors, explained that the project's Learning and Technology Center would offer counseling services through Memorial Behavioral Health as well as job training services for the tiny homes' residents. Hanson said Be Neighbors already has memoranda of understanding agreements with other community agencies to provide additional support services.

Several aldermen noted there are existing social service agencies, such as Fifth Street Renaissance, which specifically work with veterans and questioned how many unhoused veterans there were in Springfield. Gregory referenced the point-in-time count that took place last month, an annual effort led by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to estimate the number of people without safe, stable housing, and said it was his understanding there were "less than three" veterans lacking housing.

Hanson said that council members and area residents misunderstand the target population that the tiny homes development seeks to serve.

"We aren't just talking about the homeless veteran you may see laying on a park bench. It's the veteran that comes back and they're having issues, they're jumping from couch to couch in their friends' apartments," Hanson said. "If IHDA saw there was no need here, we wouldn't have received the funding."

Gregory countered that "this narrative that the city is not taking care of its veterans is not true," and chided Hall for the way he tried to convince the City Council that the project had area residents' support.

"You can't get a petition from someone on the west side for something that's going on here, that's disingenuous. None of the neighborhood associations knew anything about it," Gregory said. "We like to paint a pretty picture and say, 'We're going to do this, it's going to be great,' but this is not about veterans," Gregory said, adding that he believed it would primarily serve other unhoused individuals.

Hall, a U.S. Marine Corps veteran, countered that "from the beginning, it was always about homeless veterans. Everything I presented to you is the honest-to-God truth," he said. "We have the OK to build, we already have the zoning to build. You can't stop the building of the 18 houses."

But stopping the build is what Gregory had in mind when he asked the city's corporation counsel, Greg Moredock, to draft an ordinance revoking the zoning change that was already granted for the project. Gregory said his rationale is that the rezoning was accomplished under false pretenses and Hall's current proposal isn't the same as what was initially presented.

Moredock declined to comment after Illinois Times inquired about the process and timetable for an ordinance to revoke the tiny homes project rezoning.

Although the council voted unanimously to withdraw the tiny homes project funding resolution from consideration, several council members offered Hall some encouragement.

"I hope this is not an ending, but a different way to look at this," said Ward 8 Ald. Erin Conley. "I thank you for your dedication to provide more housing. We know that's an unmet need in our community."

Ward 10 Ald. Ralph Hanauer admitted, "It's tough for us to vote against homeless vets," and added, "You can always come back, but you've got to get the blessing of the neighborhoods first."

Ward 4 Ald. Larry Rockford encouraged Hall to consider other areas of town for his development.

"I've spoken to the director of IHDA about possible locations on the north end of town," Rockford said. "So if it doesn't get built on the southeast side of town, there are a couple of sites on the north end of town."

Hanson, the project attorney, demurred when asked why other locations aren't being considered.

"It's not feasible. We've already gone through the process, we've gone through zoning – this isn't a surprise to anyone," Hanson said. "This whole process has been a public process. If you looked at every single NIMBY-ism that came up for every project, nothing would get done."