I'll come to you via zoom as it is asked the mayor week and we're with the Terre Haute do Bennett second week in July already. Thank you very much for being here.
It's good to be here, Joe.
Uh, probably a little different Fourth of July this past weekend. How was it there in Terre Haute?
It was kind of quiet. I mean, obviously people were shooting off fireworks or seemed to be a lot more people having their own personal shows at home. But the entire weekend was pretty quiet. We didn't have the parade and just other you know, normal Fourth of July activities didn't occur this year. So it was actually a peaceful and I got a lot of things done around the house so I you know, it worked out for me. And I think from a community perspective, that people attended our firework show, we went ahead and did that at Fairbanks Park and it was well attended.
So I think that overall it was
another step in the process. As we move forward. A few more people came out probably but We're still a ways off from having normal kinds of attendance and things that are local events.
Yeah, we'll get into that a little bit later. I I wanted to just kind of brush up on you know, the, the climate right now. You know, the social climate, the political climate, we have the pandemic climate. The news kind of spattered with racial situations and you may have seen a Bloomington last night with a car and a protest and attack at a local lake. You know, I looked at in Terre Haute at the newspaper and saw about some racial comments a probe at the Vigo county jail and minority students making demands at ISU, what goes through your mind when you're seeing all of this come to the forefront right now?
Well, I mean, I think emotions are high right now and people you know, their radars up are noticing and same things and feel free to you know, talk about it. I think some of the conversations I've had with local people, sometimes they just they don't say anything. They don't come out publicly and say they've experienced something. I think, in some ways that's very healthy. I guess what happens on the other half of it what we do to address that is the biggest concern, I guess. So I would say that, yes, there's a lot of that going on all across the United States. We hear all kinds of stories, and some local stories. I still feel good overall about people feeling comfortable to report those things. I mean, we're having more conversations all the time. But that's very good for everyone involved. And I just hope it raises awareness and conscious people to, you know, don't say things don't do things that just, I mean, you don't want anybody to say anything to us. So why would you say something to somebody else? I think sometimes you just need to reset, you know, kind of hit the reset button and think about how you act around other people. And once you do that, maybe we can stop some of this and you know, I'm I'm all ears, the community is. And so I think there's a lot of people listening right now, and being very conscious about what's going on in this environment. So the goal now is to be able to begin to heal and do some things to fix some of these problems. So it's on all of us to do that. And I just think it is a very, there's a lot of different factions going on from one day to the next. Sometimes you hear well, that's the hot topic of the day, then it swings back. And then the pandemic jumps back into the mix. And I mean, it is it's really all over the place. And I just think it's very unique time. So we all need to just, you know, kind of take a big deep breath and say, What can I do to make this a better place if I can help people from getting the pandemic? Let's do that. Let's be conscious about that. Let's make sure that we're reaching out and treating everybody with respect and dignity. So we can kind of deal with that. And so there's we can multitask. We're all good at that. So I just think with all the different things going on Though there are a lot of distractions, and we need to stay focused on, on becoming a better community and a better state, better United States. So what can we do to participate in that? It's a question of the day.
Right. And I think during this time, community members are really looking up to leaders, when things seem to be kind of going all over the place. People want to look to something and you're the elected leader, one of the major elected leaders in this state, and they're in Terre Haute, how can you help lead?
Well, I think you know that and there's different ways, I guess, depending on what the issue is, but as an example of some of the protests and things that are going on, we've met with multiple different groups. We've got some people involved, mistake holder perspective on the body cams that we're reviewing right now. We brought them engaged in that process. we've answered a lot of questions. We've put a lot of misinformation to rest and so that's been a very helpful The exchange and so I really feel like we're doing a good job from that leadership perspective in that area, the pandemic, you know, it started to settle down a little bit. And I've done a lot of communications to the public. I haven't done as much in the last couple of weeks, because just kind of waiting to see are we are we going back up? You know, are we going to see a peak. So that's been a little bit trickier two times some of the communications and ability to do some leadership kind of things. I still think our health department's doing a good job, putting out daily information and the local hospitals and so we're all kind of part of that. It's just I don't know where it's going. So that's a really big bit of a tricky part right now to kind of predict what do we say next? What do we push people to do? Other than social distancing? And we're mask when you're out in public, doing everything we can to stop the spread. So you know, I think I met with ISU last week when we talked about pandemic kind of things related is you opening back up I think there's, we're all doing the things we need to do. But there's just too many unknowns about this. There's no just set thing that we can go out and announce to the public and say, you know, we're trying to be a leader here trying to give you some good information, when we're getting a lot of mixed messages across the board. So that's a tough one. I'm just trying to be available to people to answer questions, you know, putting stuff out as best we can, I guess, really just trying to be engaged in a way that we're listening. We're trying to answer the questions you may have, but not trying to force something out there that I don't know whether is, you know, accurate or not about where this is going. So that's just been the hardest part about this whole COVID-19.
How are they the COVID numbers there in Vigo County? Are they going up going down steady, or
they're they're trickling up? You know, if you look at one chart show where we started with one and we're up to 236 now Sometimes people look at that and say, Wow, it's going uphill. But when you look at kind of the peaks, we've had a couple of peaks, and now we're having a little bit of a peak, but we've gone up five or six in the last week, or last four or five days. So it's not anything significant. But I keep watching for that, you know, we're really starts trending upward. I think if people continue to just be smart about this, there's no reason for you not be able to go out but use common sense, try to wear them out, do that social distancing, and eventually that will trail off. So we're still at 236. I feel really good about that based on our population, and this has been going on since March. But where does it go from here that I don't know.
Are you still on the state schedule, the governor's 4.5 stage in terms of reopening?
Yes, we're following that to tee. You know, we were going to open up City Hall and do some things this past Monday. So we opened up City Court, we're leaving the rest of the building enclosed. We're kind of looking towards July 20. When this next phase hopefully expires on the 18th of July when we open up on Monday, I hope to have City Hall open but, you know, I guess we'll see what happens over the next two weeks. You know, I know there's, of course still some concerns about reopening but the Terre Haute summer fast begins Friday. So we're talking what rides Carnival, how we'll just, it's just a carnival and their food vendors. We're not having any of the normal things that we have a fair bank Park, we used to have music and food vendors and art, you know, and crafts and things. We're not doing any of that. So it's just the carnival. They have done a great job of putting a plan in place to deal with social distancing and asking people to wear masks and of course all their staff will be. I mean, it's, you know, it's part of the 4.5 plan, so it's perfectly fine for it to be open. We just the park board and I agreed with that because they felt like we ought to do something and offer something to the public that we felt would be safe and being outdoors with that being just a carnival only, and there are a couple of food trailers that they're doing. Following the governor's plan, that health department is blessed what they're doing locally. And so we feel good about that. I don't think it's going to create any issues for our community.
You know, we're getting a lot of questions in the newsroom from people worried about an influx of students from all over the world coming back to college towns, such as you know, they're in Terre Haute and only about a month that's, you know, hard to believe, but till August, and they'll start coming back and I know you touched upon this, you said that you were in meetings with ISU administration. But people feel like it's the perfect storm for a big resurgence of case. Ken, is there anything that you can help answer these
questions from, you know, that's a hard one too, because I agree with that. 100% you're gonna have people coming from areas that are Maybe maybe they're not a hotbed at all, they come here and they get exposed to it and take it back when they go home on the weekend, or, you know, for the first brace, or you have people coming in here, this bringing it from a hotbed that adds to our mix that, you know, could be very have a very negative impact. I think the college towns shouldn't be concerned. I mean, there's just no doubt about that any, any which way you look at it. And we're going to be mixing people up, they're going to be coming, as you said, from internationally, all over the United States and all over Indiana, when they come back to school and so whether they've been exposed to it and don't know it, or come here and get exposed to it when they weren't where they came from. And I don't know what that looks like. And so I think we're gonna have to be really cautious about the social distancing and the mass thing is so important that an AI issue themselves they're going to have to really watch that when you're putting people in classrooms. And you're having athletic teams get together and where you have that close proximity. I don't think there is any specific thing you can do other than really focus on students being conscious of that. And, and I, I don't know what it's going to look like I, you know, I hope and pray that it's not any significant at all. And we're going to look at this and say, Wow, this worked out really great. But on the other hand, it could have a huge impact on us locally. And so that's what we're having these conversations about to try to figure out. Is there something that we've missed so far? Is there something we're not ready for? How do we make sure that we, if you find somebody that does test positive for isolated, all those things that you've never had to do before, you know, we had a little bit of in the spring, but when you shut everything down that kind of dealt with it here, we're going to be opening up and I don't see anybody shutting it down, you know, in the first week if you start seeing an uptick, so I don't have all the answers. I don't Anybody knows I just think we got to be as prepared as possible for this influx of students. You know, St. Mary's roll home and ISU and Ivy Tech all they're going to be people coming here from all over.
Federal executions are scheduled for next week at the federal prison there in Terre Haute. There's some delayed requests from attorneys to move those to next year due to the pandemic. But, you know, now the nation also will be looking at Terre Haute would be the first federal execution since 2003. How does the city prepare for something like this?
You know, I hope it's pretty uneventful. You know, it's just part of the business that they are required to do and it just happens to be in Terre Haute. So it's one of those things that we've all we've known it's going to happen again at some point we just didn't know when and we'll we'll see if it happens on Monday or not. If a court jumps in there
I think that
it's really tricky to say How many people are going to come out to protest as an example? You know, so we're, we've been preparing almost for a year because this was supposed to happen quite some time ago, the local law enforcement working with the prison, look talking about staging areas for protesters on both sides, those that are pro the death penalty, and those that are opposing the death penalty, keeping those groups apart, and giving them access to the prison rounds to be able to, you know, adequately protest, all those things are in place, you know, and practices have been done and walkthroughs. So I feel really good about the preparation. You just don't know how many people are actually going to show up and whether it'll be peaceful. So I'm hopeful that it will be we'll get through this and, you know, there'll be more to come down the road. I just, you know, it's just one of those things that we just have to deal with. And there's a lot of unknowns to that too. But I think we're ready as a community. And I think the Bureau of Prisons has done a great job along with our law. Law enforcement to deal with anything that may arise.
I know we're almost out of time I saw this on the AP a few weeks ago and kind of took note of it want to ask you about this social service agency selected a location there for a day center for homeless people. Yeah. Can you tell talk a little bit about the building they chose, and I think the city is also contributing to it.
Yes, we've been looking at something like this for a couple of years but didn't really have a funding source available. And so a local group reach services who do a lot of different things related to serving people, but one of them being trying to do more for the homeless population. We needed a place to be able to have people go and hang out at during the day because a lot of times are sitting on benches, hanging out in the park hanging out at the bus station at the library, keeping cool you know, getting hydrated, those kind of things. And we've always felt like there needed to be a place when it's really hot. In a month is really cold for them to go and access services, be able to maybe have a locker there or something to store some of their materials, but they had their personal possessions. But we just didn't really have the place or the funds to do it. So along comes COVID-19 and some of the extra headman he came to Terre Haute to help us deal with the homeless population was one of the targeted areas. And so there is a building that they have acquired that is formerly a nursing home and not a large one, a fairly small one. That's almost a perfect fit. Just to the east of our downtown areas. It's a perfect location to for the homeless to access reach services. We'll come in and operate the facility once it's remodeled. City of Terre Haute is providing $300,000 to the TED emergency grant be able to do this project and then that will become a drop in center so all day they'll be able to go there and get a shower who last warm up in the winter. And then access directly access social services there to get them plugged in to whatever services they need to hopefully help them get back into a, you know, home. So I think it's going to be a great fit for the community. It's not a place where they're going to sleep. We already have homeless shelters. But we needed a place for those that aren't part of those shelters or can't be because they've been kicked out, but a place to be able to access services very easily. I'm excited about it, looking forward to get it going. Hopefully, the goal is to have it open this fall when the weather turns cold, you can be ready for the winter.
And the building was a former nursing home.
Yes, we're at it's just awful poplar street on 17th 15th Street, sorry, 15th Street. So just south of poplar on 15th Street is really easy access. And so I think it's going to be kind of a win win for a lot of different people here to meet a need. We've had for some time.
That's all I had for today. But as always, I'd like to ask if you have any announcements or things you'd like to add today?
No, you know, it's been a crazy year, I think we would all attest to that. For me, personally, you know, I had surgery, the end of February, that was pretty significant on my shoulder, and we've had the COVID-19. And then we've had the issues with, you know, the racial issues and the thing that happened in Minneapolis that's triggered a lot of things. You know, and so some ways when you go look back a little bit and reflect you think sometimes you gotta have things like this to come along to make you be better at what you are. And I think COVID-19 has made a stronger and a lot of different ways. I think we're going to address a lot of racial issues in our community that people have brought to our attention, not a lot in order to say it like it's it's a serious problem, but opening up and listening and letting those folks be heard that have issues are already on the track to deal with some things that I'm I'm excited about who knows what the second half of the year brings? Are we gonna locusts dependent, I come down upon us are we gonna have an earthquake? I mean, who knows, but I think that we are stronger for getting, you know working our way through this. We keep saying we see the light at the end of the tunnel, but we have new things that pop up every day. I think we're just a resilient community and we need to be ready for what the future brings us. And this has made us stronger. And I'm you know, we'll see, hopefully the second half the year is more normal. From a lot of perspectives, we're working on our budget and our finances, you know, we're know we're going to lose a little bit of money. So I got to figure out how to deal with that. But it's kind of a moving target in a way that you know, once you kind of solve one thing, there's some other pieces that I feel really good about that we're addressing and really love the communication right now. And I'm excited about the second half of the year.
All right, thank you very much, and we'll see you next month.
Thanks. Thank you, Joe.
It's good to be here, Joe.
Uh, probably a little different Fourth of July this past weekend. How was it there in Terre Haute?
It was kind of quiet. I mean, obviously people were shooting off fireworks or seemed to be a lot more people having their own personal shows at home. But the entire weekend was pretty quiet. We didn't have the parade and just other you know, normal Fourth of July activities didn't occur this year. So it was actually a peaceful and I got a lot of things done around the house so I you know, it worked out for me. And I think from a community perspective, that people attended our firework show, we went ahead and did that at Fairbanks Park and it was well attended.
So I think that overall it was
another step in the process. As we move forward. A few more people came out probably but We're still a ways off from having normal kinds of attendance and things that are local events.
Yeah, we'll get into that a little bit later. I I wanted to just kind of brush up on you know, the, the climate right now. You know, the social climate, the political climate, we have the pandemic climate. The news kind of spattered with racial situations and you may have seen a Bloomington last night with a car and a protest and attack at a local lake. You know, I looked at in Terre Haute at the newspaper and saw about some racial comments a probe at the Vigo county jail and minority students making demands at ISU, what goes through your mind when you're seeing all of this come to the forefront right now?
Well, I mean, I think emotions are high right now and people you know, their radars up are noticing and same things and feel free to you know, talk about it. I think some of the conversations I've had with local people, sometimes they just they don't say anything. They don't come out publicly and say they've experienced something. I think, in some ways that's very healthy. I guess what happens on the other half of it what we do to address that is the biggest concern, I guess. So I would say that, yes, there's a lot of that going on all across the United States. We hear all kinds of stories, and some local stories. I still feel good overall about people feeling comfortable to report those things. I mean, we're having more conversations all the time. But that's very good for everyone involved. And I just hope it raises awareness and conscious people to, you know, don't say things don't do things that just, I mean, you don't want anybody to say anything to us. So why would you say something to somebody else? I think sometimes you just need to reset, you know, kind of hit the reset button and think about how you act around other people. And once you do that, maybe we can stop some of this and you know, I'm I'm all ears, the community is. And so I think there's a lot of people listening right now, and being very conscious about what's going on in this environment. So the goal now is to be able to begin to heal and do some things to fix some of these problems. So it's on all of us to do that. And I just think it is a very, there's a lot of different factions going on from one day to the next. Sometimes you hear well, that's the hot topic of the day, then it swings back. And then the pandemic jumps back into the mix. And I mean, it is it's really all over the place. And I just think it's very unique time. So we all need to just, you know, kind of take a big deep breath and say, What can I do to make this a better place if I can help people from getting the pandemic? Let's do that. Let's be conscious about that. Let's make sure that we're reaching out and treating everybody with respect and dignity. So we can kind of deal with that. And so there's we can multitask. We're all good at that. So I just think with all the different things going on Though there are a lot of distractions, and we need to stay focused on, on becoming a better community and a better state, better United States. So what can we do to participate in that? It's a question of the day.
Right. And I think during this time, community members are really looking up to leaders, when things seem to be kind of going all over the place. People want to look to something and you're the elected leader, one of the major elected leaders in this state, and they're in Terre Haute, how can you help lead?
Well, I think you know that and there's different ways, I guess, depending on what the issue is, but as an example of some of the protests and things that are going on, we've met with multiple different groups. We've got some people involved, mistake holder perspective on the body cams that we're reviewing right now. We brought them engaged in that process. we've answered a lot of questions. We've put a lot of misinformation to rest and so that's been a very helpful The exchange and so I really feel like we're doing a good job from that leadership perspective in that area, the pandemic, you know, it started to settle down a little bit. And I've done a lot of communications to the public. I haven't done as much in the last couple of weeks, because just kind of waiting to see are we are we going back up? You know, are we going to see a peak. So that's been a little bit trickier two times some of the communications and ability to do some leadership kind of things. I still think our health department's doing a good job, putting out daily information and the local hospitals and so we're all kind of part of that. It's just I don't know where it's going. So that's a really big bit of a tricky part right now to kind of predict what do we say next? What do we push people to do? Other than social distancing? And we're mask when you're out in public, doing everything we can to stop the spread. So you know, I think I met with ISU last week when we talked about pandemic kind of things related is you opening back up I think there's, we're all doing the things we need to do. But there's just too many unknowns about this. There's no just set thing that we can go out and announce to the public and say, you know, we're trying to be a leader here trying to give you some good information, when we're getting a lot of mixed messages across the board. So that's a tough one. I'm just trying to be available to people to answer questions, you know, putting stuff out as best we can, I guess, really just trying to be engaged in a way that we're listening. We're trying to answer the questions you may have, but not trying to force something out there that I don't know whether is, you know, accurate or not about where this is going. So that's just been the hardest part about this whole COVID-19.
How are they the COVID numbers there in Vigo County? Are they going up going down steady, or
they're they're trickling up? You know, if you look at one chart show where we started with one and we're up to 236 now Sometimes people look at that and say, Wow, it's going uphill. But when you look at kind of the peaks, we've had a couple of peaks, and now we're having a little bit of a peak, but we've gone up five or six in the last week, or last four or five days. So it's not anything significant. But I keep watching for that, you know, we're really starts trending upward. I think if people continue to just be smart about this, there's no reason for you not be able to go out but use common sense, try to wear them out, do that social distancing, and eventually that will trail off. So we're still at 236. I feel really good about that based on our population, and this has been going on since March. But where does it go from here that I don't know.
Are you still on the state schedule, the governor's 4.5 stage in terms of reopening?
Yes, we're following that to tee. You know, we were going to open up City Hall and do some things this past Monday. So we opened up City Court, we're leaving the rest of the building enclosed. We're kind of looking towards July 20. When this next phase hopefully expires on the 18th of July when we open up on Monday, I hope to have City Hall open but, you know, I guess we'll see what happens over the next two weeks. You know, I know there's, of course still some concerns about reopening but the Terre Haute summer fast begins Friday. So we're talking what rides Carnival, how we'll just, it's just a carnival and their food vendors. We're not having any of the normal things that we have a fair bank Park, we used to have music and food vendors and art, you know, and crafts and things. We're not doing any of that. So it's just the carnival. They have done a great job of putting a plan in place to deal with social distancing and asking people to wear masks and of course all their staff will be. I mean, it's, you know, it's part of the 4.5 plan, so it's perfectly fine for it to be open. We just the park board and I agreed with that because they felt like we ought to do something and offer something to the public that we felt would be safe and being outdoors with that being just a carnival only, and there are a couple of food trailers that they're doing. Following the governor's plan, that health department is blessed what they're doing locally. And so we feel good about that. I don't think it's going to create any issues for our community.
You know, we're getting a lot of questions in the newsroom from people worried about an influx of students from all over the world coming back to college towns, such as you know, they're in Terre Haute and only about a month that's, you know, hard to believe, but till August, and they'll start coming back and I know you touched upon this, you said that you were in meetings with ISU administration. But people feel like it's the perfect storm for a big resurgence of case. Ken, is there anything that you can help answer these
questions from, you know, that's a hard one too, because I agree with that. 100% you're gonna have people coming from areas that are Maybe maybe they're not a hotbed at all, they come here and they get exposed to it and take it back when they go home on the weekend, or, you know, for the first brace, or you have people coming in here, this bringing it from a hotbed that adds to our mix that, you know, could be very have a very negative impact. I think the college towns shouldn't be concerned. I mean, there's just no doubt about that any, any which way you look at it. And we're going to be mixing people up, they're going to be coming, as you said, from internationally, all over the United States and all over Indiana, when they come back to school and so whether they've been exposed to it and don't know it, or come here and get exposed to it when they weren't where they came from. And I don't know what that looks like. And so I think we're gonna have to be really cautious about the social distancing and the mass thing is so important that an AI issue themselves they're going to have to really watch that when you're putting people in classrooms. And you're having athletic teams get together and where you have that close proximity. I don't think there is any specific thing you can do other than really focus on students being conscious of that. And, and I, I don't know what it's going to look like I, you know, I hope and pray that it's not any significant at all. And we're going to look at this and say, Wow, this worked out really great. But on the other hand, it could have a huge impact on us locally. And so that's what we're having these conversations about to try to figure out. Is there something that we've missed so far? Is there something we're not ready for? How do we make sure that we, if you find somebody that does test positive for isolated, all those things that you've never had to do before, you know, we had a little bit of in the spring, but when you shut everything down that kind of dealt with it here, we're going to be opening up and I don't see anybody shutting it down, you know, in the first week if you start seeing an uptick, so I don't have all the answers. I don't Anybody knows I just think we got to be as prepared as possible for this influx of students. You know, St. Mary's roll home and ISU and Ivy Tech all they're going to be people coming here from all over.
Federal executions are scheduled for next week at the federal prison there in Terre Haute. There's some delayed requests from attorneys to move those to next year due to the pandemic. But, you know, now the nation also will be looking at Terre Haute would be the first federal execution since 2003. How does the city prepare for something like this?
You know, I hope it's pretty uneventful. You know, it's just part of the business that they are required to do and it just happens to be in Terre Haute. So it's one of those things that we've all we've known it's going to happen again at some point we just didn't know when and we'll we'll see if it happens on Monday or not. If a court jumps in there
I think that
it's really tricky to say How many people are going to come out to protest as an example? You know, so we're, we've been preparing almost for a year because this was supposed to happen quite some time ago, the local law enforcement working with the prison, look talking about staging areas for protesters on both sides, those that are pro the death penalty, and those that are opposing the death penalty, keeping those groups apart, and giving them access to the prison rounds to be able to, you know, adequately protest, all those things are in place, you know, and practices have been done and walkthroughs. So I feel really good about the preparation. You just don't know how many people are actually going to show up and whether it'll be peaceful. So I'm hopeful that it will be we'll get through this and, you know, there'll be more to come down the road. I just, you know, it's just one of those things that we just have to deal with. And there's a lot of unknowns to that too. But I think we're ready as a community. And I think the Bureau of Prisons has done a great job along with our law. Law enforcement to deal with anything that may arise.
I know we're almost out of time I saw this on the AP a few weeks ago and kind of took note of it want to ask you about this social service agency selected a location there for a day center for homeless people. Yeah. Can you tell talk a little bit about the building they chose, and I think the city is also contributing to it.
Yes, we've been looking at something like this for a couple of years but didn't really have a funding source available. And so a local group reach services who do a lot of different things related to serving people, but one of them being trying to do more for the homeless population. We needed a place to be able to have people go and hang out at during the day because a lot of times are sitting on benches, hanging out in the park hanging out at the bus station at the library, keeping cool you know, getting hydrated, those kind of things. And we've always felt like there needed to be a place when it's really hot. In a month is really cold for them to go and access services, be able to maybe have a locker there or something to store some of their materials, but they had their personal possessions. But we just didn't really have the place or the funds to do it. So along comes COVID-19 and some of the extra headman he came to Terre Haute to help us deal with the homeless population was one of the targeted areas. And so there is a building that they have acquired that is formerly a nursing home and not a large one, a fairly small one. That's almost a perfect fit. Just to the east of our downtown areas. It's a perfect location to for the homeless to access reach services. We'll come in and operate the facility once it's remodeled. City of Terre Haute is providing $300,000 to the TED emergency grant be able to do this project and then that will become a drop in center so all day they'll be able to go there and get a shower who last warm up in the winter. And then access directly access social services there to get them plugged in to whatever services they need to hopefully help them get back into a, you know, home. So I think it's going to be a great fit for the community. It's not a place where they're going to sleep. We already have homeless shelters. But we needed a place for those that aren't part of those shelters or can't be because they've been kicked out, but a place to be able to access services very easily. I'm excited about it, looking forward to get it going. Hopefully, the goal is to have it open this fall when the weather turns cold, you can be ready for the winter.
And the building was a former nursing home.
Yes, we're at it's just awful poplar street on 17th 15th Street, sorry, 15th Street. So just south of poplar on 15th Street is really easy access. And so I think it's going to be kind of a win win for a lot of different people here to meet a need. We've had for some time.
That's all I had for today. But as always, I'd like to ask if you have any announcements or things you'd like to add today?
No, you know, it's been a crazy year, I think we would all attest to that. For me, personally, you know, I had surgery, the end of February, that was pretty significant on my shoulder, and we've had the COVID-19. And then we've had the issues with, you know, the racial issues and the thing that happened in Minneapolis that's triggered a lot of things. You know, and so some ways when you go look back a little bit and reflect you think sometimes you gotta have things like this to come along to make you be better at what you are. And I think COVID-19 has made a stronger and a lot of different ways. I think we're going to address a lot of racial issues in our community that people have brought to our attention, not a lot in order to say it like it's it's a serious problem, but opening up and listening and letting those folks be heard that have issues are already on the track to deal with some things that I'm I'm excited about who knows what the second half of the year brings? Are we gonna locusts dependent, I come down upon us are we gonna have an earthquake? I mean, who knows, but I think that we are stronger for getting, you know working our way through this. We keep saying we see the light at the end of the tunnel, but we have new things that pop up every day. I think we're just a resilient community and we need to be ready for what the future brings us. And this has made us stronger. And I'm you know, we'll see, hopefully the second half the year is more normal. From a lot of perspectives, we're working on our budget and our finances, you know, we're know we're going to lose a little bit of money. So I got to figure out how to deal with that. But it's kind of a moving target in a way that you know, once you kind of solve one thing, there's some other pieces that I feel really good about that we're addressing and really love the communication right now. And I'm excited about the second half of the year.
All right, thank you very much, and we'll see you next month.
Thanks. Thank you, Joe.
