BONITA SPRINGS — A Bonita Springs resident has launched an online petition for local residents who object to a St. Matthew’s House homeless shelter in the community and its proposed location.
Dawn Salter, 32, launched the online petition early Thursday out of concern the shelter, which could have 120 beds, would be detrimental to nearby neighborhoods and businesses.
St. Matthew’s officials have proposed opening a $2.6 million shelter at the former Causeway Lumber on Old 41 Road.
Besides her concern about the impact to neighborhoods and businesses, Salter said the Bonita Springs City Council has to take up a zoning matter for the project, and that could be done this summer when many seasonal Bonita residents are gone.
Having an online petition to voice their objection can serve like a proxy, she said. She plans on reading the petition at the future zoning hearing, and she will present a hard copy to the council.
Before she notified the media about the petition, she already collected 83 signatures.
“I put my target at 1,000, but I shoot for moon for a lot more,” Salter said.
Salter said most Bonita residents she has spoken with are not familiar with the project, and she has a concern with how St. Matthew’s officials have gathered and distributed information to the media.
This past April, St. Matthew’s House retained a firm to conduct a telephone survey of 300 registered voters in Bonita Springs about their views of the proposed shelter. The results showed 74 percent were favorable to it.
However, some residents who were polled later said they felt the questions were leading.
Salter said her online petition will enable taxpayers to voice their opinion from any computer or smart phone.
The petition can be seen by searching for the word “Bonita” at www.thepetitionsite.com. The first link under petitions will be the full petition name, which is “Bonita Springs Residents Opposing Proposed St. Matthew’s House.”
Registration for the site is free. Residents will be asked to provide their email and home address to sign, but none of the information is published or shared for marketing purposes, Salter said.
Residents may also sign the petition by going to the Concerned Citizens of Bonita website at www.ccobonita.org and clicking on the petition icon near the bottom of the home page.
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Comments » 1
bornintheusa writes:
Bonita Springs and North Naples residents -- wake up! Those behind the St. Matthew's mega homeless shelter are trying to ram this through when many of Bonita's residents are up north and/or are unaware of the proposal. Why weren't there hearings this past season while the snowbirds were here?!? Because it would have been shot down, that's why!
Everyone OPPOSED to this mega shelter/drug and alcohol treatment center, needs to get on the horn and tell their city councilman/woman AND EVERY ZONING COMMITTEE MEMBER-- **NO** to this shelter! Please also email them. We also need to pack the meetings to voice our opposition. You can count on the people in support of it doing it, and the majority of them are NOT from Bonita Springs! Many are from Naples!!!
If the city approves this horribly planned shelter in the worst location for it to be, many residents who can afford it will move out of the city, myself included. It will erode the residential tax base, then the commercial tax base. It has happened before in the inner cities when crime took over when political correctness was rammed down everyone's throats.
No matter how well run the proponents of this shelter say it will be run, no matter how many nice propoganda stories they do in The Bonita Banner, The Bonita and Naples Daily News, if this is built, the City of Bonita Springs will go to hell in a handbasket as they say. How sad. Why don't they build it in that cesspool called Old Bonita? It would be closer for them to walk to the Cafe of Life...
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