Adopt a Citywide Care Contract
The Issue
A city is not merely a collection of roads, zoning codes, and real estate assets; it is a shared social fabric. Around the globe, functional and humane municipalities operate on a self-evident truth: a community is only as strong as its most vulnerable members. When a city allows numerous public, commercial, or foreclosed residential structures to sit vacant and decaying while its own people face life-threatening winter elements, the foundational social contract is broken. Such is the same when non-profit organizations, such as The Least of These (TLOT), are stepping in to bridge these gaps and are continually faced with systemic barriers, such as the current motion from the local business owners, limiting the services they are able to provide.
TLOT must now attend two appeal hearings on Monday, November 9th and Tuesday, November 10th to save their warming buses. These buses have provided lifesaving warmth to more than 3,000 members of our community in the past (including their pets!), however these mobile shelters have been blocked by two (that is right - 2) neighboring business owners. Initially, the city had approved the use of these warming buses, along with outdoor lockers and a portable bathroom. Following the complaints, the city issued citations, forcing TLOT to cease these operations. Since February, TLOT has been fighting appeal after counter appeal, obtaining a new Certificate of Occupancy that authorized these operations, just to be met with another counter appeal from these business owners. Both meetings are public - Please Be There!
November 9th: Support Only
November 10th: Public comments allowed
In the meantime…
We, the people of this community, hereby present The Care Contract—a baseline standard of structural organization, human decency, and common sense that our local government must honor.
THE CHANNELS OF ACCOUNTABILITY
Article I: The Right to Basic Warmth
No resident shall be forced to sleep on frozen pavement while usable indoor square footage sits empty. The city must recognize emergency winter shelter not as a seasonal charity, but as a non-negotiable public utility.
Article II: The Mobilization of Vacant Spaces
The city must immediately audit its inventory of abandoned, underutilized, and tax-foreclosed properties. A designated percentage of these viable structures must be immediately retrofitted and opened to serve as emergency overnight warming centers during sub-freezing winter nights.
Article III: Humanity Over Bureaucracy
Zoning technicalities, administrative delays, and political stagnation shall no longer take precedence over human survival. When lives are at risk, emergency powers must be invoked to bypass traditional real estate bureaucracy.
Article IV: Shared Community Governance
The organization and operation of these repurposed spaces should be carried out in transparent cooperation with local mutual aid networks, volunteers, and street medics who possess the community’s trust.
THE ULTIMATUM OF COMMON SENSE
This document does not represent a radical political demand. It is a reminder of the absolute bare minimum required of a civilized society. If cities across the world can organize their existing infrastructure to ensure no one freezes to death, among the other resources they provide, our city can do the same.
We demand that the city council immediately provides an alternative solution. If you are going to deny local community-based efforts to protect this population within our community, you need to identify, prepare, and open a network of winter shelters from our community’s abundant vacant spaces before the severe weather claims lives.
City officials, you are the ones who carry the power for positive change. You can stand with the business owners or the community you are charged with protecting. In this situation, you cannot stand with both without compromise.
There are two questions that need to be answered:
If not you, then who?
If not here, then where?
These are real humans, and they live here. They are not an abstract idea that can just continue to be ignored, denied or overwritten.
2
The Issue
A city is not merely a collection of roads, zoning codes, and real estate assets; it is a shared social fabric. Around the globe, functional and humane municipalities operate on a self-evident truth: a community is only as strong as its most vulnerable members. When a city allows numerous public, commercial, or foreclosed residential structures to sit vacant and decaying while its own people face life-threatening winter elements, the foundational social contract is broken. Such is the same when non-profit organizations, such as The Least of These (TLOT), are stepping in to bridge these gaps and are continually faced with systemic barriers, such as the current motion from the local business owners, limiting the services they are able to provide.
TLOT must now attend two appeal hearings on Monday, November 9th and Tuesday, November 10th to save their warming buses. These buses have provided lifesaving warmth to more than 3,000 members of our community in the past (including their pets!), however these mobile shelters have been blocked by two (that is right - 2) neighboring business owners. Initially, the city had approved the use of these warming buses, along with outdoor lockers and a portable bathroom. Following the complaints, the city issued citations, forcing TLOT to cease these operations. Since February, TLOT has been fighting appeal after counter appeal, obtaining a new Certificate of Occupancy that authorized these operations, just to be met with another counter appeal from these business owners. Both meetings are public - Please Be There!
November 9th: Support Only
November 10th: Public comments allowed
In the meantime…
We, the people of this community, hereby present The Care Contract—a baseline standard of structural organization, human decency, and common sense that our local government must honor.
THE CHANNELS OF ACCOUNTABILITY
Article I: The Right to Basic Warmth
No resident shall be forced to sleep on frozen pavement while usable indoor square footage sits empty. The city must recognize emergency winter shelter not as a seasonal charity, but as a non-negotiable public utility.
Article II: The Mobilization of Vacant Spaces
The city must immediately audit its inventory of abandoned, underutilized, and tax-foreclosed properties. A designated percentage of these viable structures must be immediately retrofitted and opened to serve as emergency overnight warming centers during sub-freezing winter nights.
Article III: Humanity Over Bureaucracy
Zoning technicalities, administrative delays, and political stagnation shall no longer take precedence over human survival. When lives are at risk, emergency powers must be invoked to bypass traditional real estate bureaucracy.
Article IV: Shared Community Governance
The organization and operation of these repurposed spaces should be carried out in transparent cooperation with local mutual aid networks, volunteers, and street medics who possess the community’s trust.
THE ULTIMATUM OF COMMON SENSE
This document does not represent a radical political demand. It is a reminder of the absolute bare minimum required of a civilized society. If cities across the world can organize their existing infrastructure to ensure no one freezes to death, among the other resources they provide, our city can do the same.
We demand that the city council immediately provides an alternative solution. If you are going to deny local community-based efforts to protect this population within our community, you need to identify, prepare, and open a network of winter shelters from our community’s abundant vacant spaces before the severe weather claims lives.
City officials, you are the ones who carry the power for positive change. You can stand with the business owners or the community you are charged with protecting. In this situation, you cannot stand with both without compromise.
There are two questions that need to be answered:
If not you, then who?
If not here, then where?
These are real humans, and they live here. They are not an abstract idea that can just continue to be ignored, denied or overwritten.
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Petition created on October 26, 2026