December 02, 2025

There is a feature in today’s The News-Gazette on page B3 where some community members were asked for their comments about “What to do with Strides?”

CCHCC’s Executive Director, Claudia Lennhoff, was asked to submit comments on behalf of CCHCC.

You can read her comments below.

The News-Gazette – Tuesday, December 2, 2025 – “The Great Debate: What to do with Strides?”

Champaign County Health Care Consumers (CCHCC) would like to see the Strides shelter continue because it is a vital resource in our community. But Strides needs robust funding to meet its staffing needs and its monthly expenses.

Without the Strides shelter, the number of unsheltered homeless individuals would increase dramatically.  More people would suffer from the devastating effects of being unsheltered, and the community impact would be immense. The strain on our social services systems, first responders, hospital ERs, food banks, public health, and the locations where people might try to shelter themselves overnight would be devastating.

Closing Strides would not make the increasing problem of homelessness go away. It would just make it much worse.

The number one cause of homelessness in our community, and around the nation, is the cost of housing. We need far more affordable housing than what we have in our community. In fact, part of the crowding and overflow at Strides is due to this fact alone. CCHCC works closely with Strides and we have helped many of the Strides residents apply for, and be approved for disability benefits. But due to the lack of affordable housing in our community, individuals who are homeless but who do have income from disability benefits, cannot overcome the financial barriers to housing. And that is why there is a “bottle neck” at Strides in terms of people being able to move out of the shelter and into their own housing. The lack of truly affordable housing in our community is, in and of itself, having a devastating impact on the Strides shelter because people who are ready to be housed simply cannot find housing they can afford.

Unfortunately, the lack of affordable housing is about to get much worse, as the Trump Administration is calling for states to slash the numbers of people who are receiving housing vouchers through programs like the Permanent Supportive Housing (PSH) vouchers. These PSH vouchers help pay the difference in rent between what the tenant can afford and what the market rate for rent is. The federal government is telling communities that they will have to reduce the use of housing vouchers down to a third or less. This means that currently housed people who are using PSH vouchers might end up losing their homes, as landlords lose income from the vouchers. This is a recipe for disaster and tragedy, and local communities will be left picking up the pieces.

Shelters, like Strides, will become even more important in the coming months – just as funding for Strides may be running out.

CCHCC would like to see increased funding for Strides in the form of an intergovernmental agreement between Champaign and other municipalities, and the county, to provide funding to sustain Strides for the long-term..

There is some discussion about whether a unit of local government (the City of Champaign Township Supervisor’s Office) or a non-profit should operate the shelter. Regardless of who operates the shelter, adequate funding is a key ingredient to the success of any shelter, and no non-profit organization will be able to do it alone, without funding from local government sources.

The Strides shelter building was built in 2000 and it was operated by the predecessor to Rosecrance, which was Community Elements. At that time, it was called the TIMES Center shelter, and federal government funding was available to help with the costs of operating an emergency shelter.

However, federal funding for emergency shelters was significantly reduced in the early 2000s, and by the HEARTH Act of 2009, which refocused priorities and funding to other programs, leaving emergency shelters in dire need of local financial support.

We need to develop a mechanism for community wide support for Strides, to include local government sources of funding, along with philanthropic funding.

Unfortunately, recent referenda that would have helped support Strides failed. The reason that the referenda were needed was because we have Tax Caps in our community that limit the abilities of taxing bodies to raise property taxes to meet local needs. Tax Caps limit annual increases in property tax extensions to 5% or the rate of inflation, whichever is less. CCHCC fought hard for the passage of the referenda, and against the misinformation in the glossy mailers that bombarded City of Champaign residents.

Right now, Strides is in a catch-22 situation with various entities wanting to see improvements at the shelter before they decide to support the shelter financially. Yet, the changes that Strides leadership is seeking to implement are difficult without additional funding.

Programmatically, CCHCC would like to see a well-funded, well-staffed shelter that can provide the necessary staffing in order to manage operations and programs at the shelter, including daytime programming in a variety of areas that would help benefit the Strides residents who are trying to get back on their feet and find stable, permanent housing. Day time programming can include everything from classes to learn about community resources, financial literacy and managing a household budget, how to use technology and the internet, workshops for dealing with health and mental/behavioral health issues, and various other topics that could help advance people’s efforts to get housed and attain stability.

We would also like to see a shelter that does not serve both men and women in the same location, as this can be a source of problems.

Many people at Strides could be moved to housing immediately, if only there were places where they could afford to live. The most immediate need regarding Strides is the need for robust funding in order to provide the necessary staffing and amenities. However, this needs to be coupled with local governmental efforts to develop truly affordable housing in our community. Landlords could help by creating set-aside units that individuals who rely on SSI disability payments ($967 per month in 2025) could truly afford.

Support CCHCC!

Sincerely,
Champaign County Health Care Consumers