Residents who live on the westside of Covington raised concerns during a recent City Commission legislative hearing over perceived mismanagement and operation of the Emergency Shelter of Northern Kentucky (ESNKY), which opened last year at 436 West 13th Street.
The issues raised were not an attempt to address the very real and apparent issues of homelessness or housing insecurities in the region, but are instead an effort to ensure that organizations like ESNKY are doing their due diligence to serve this population appropriately, while simultaneously raising millions of dollars from private donations.
The residents emphasized that they are not opposed to the shelter or to services for the homeless but simply wants a safe neighborhood environment — and for rules to be followed and enforced.
Westside resident Aaron Wolpert filed eight complaints through the city code enforcement’s online portal on behalf of a group of concerned residents who have witnessed what appear to be multiple violations currently taking place at ESNKY, outlined in Title XI, Chapter 124 of the city code of ordinances: “[…] to set forth a uniform set of standards for shelters providing temporary housing in order to ensure the health, safety, and welfare of clients, staff, and the Covington community.”
Over the past few months, neighbors reported a dramatic uptick in trash littering streets, piles of beer cans in Linden Grove Cemetery and in Orchard Park, conspicuous sexual activity in the cemetery, jugs of urine left on porches, human feces desecrating graves, crowds of clients lining 13th Street sidewalks and illegally occupying an adjoining vacant building, and suitcases left by one party and collected by another – a sign of what the group believes to be drug dealing activity.
Residents have also documented encounters that made them fear for their personal safety. When these concerns were raised to the shelter’s director — including detailed descriptions of threatening individuals whom others had observed patronizing the shelter — residents and the police were met with a refusal to cooperate.
“When we reported drug activity associated with its clients, the shelter’s director was dismissive. In a neighborhood meeting, she responded ‘we knew the situation we were getting into,’ as if drug activity was endemic to our neighborhood. That was, I can state emphatically, not the case, at least until recently. This general reluctance to communicate candidly and accept accountability for its clients is disturbing, especially since, for example, the shelter regularly houses registered sex offenders, including some who have abused children,” Wolpert said.
“It concerns me that the Emergency Shelter of Northern Kentucky is inviting a group of people into the westside and not properly monitoring or caring for these folks. To put it simply, if I have a party and my guests aren’t behaving, it is on me to get them under control. It is also on me to make sure they are taken care of while I’m hosting them in my home. If the shelter is arguably being bad neighbors in a very obvious way from the outside, it should raise equal concerns about the way things are being handled with a very vulnerable population on the inside,” resident Nicole Erwin told the board of commissioners.
In addition to the code violations residents have witnessed outside the shelter, the group is also asking the City to look into the ‘behind the scenes’ requirements of the ordinance, like the shelter’s obligations to fulfill all mandatory state database reporting, specifically within the Kentucky Homelessness Management Information System.
Finally, according to public records, in 2022 ESNKY collected donations that more than tripled its annual expenses and currently reports $5.5 million in assets. During this same time, grants and contributions increased over 90 percent while program services decreased more than 25 percent. The group wants the ESNKY board to account for funds being allocated while operating out of a Kenton County owned building that relies heavily upon city resources.
The group of Westside residents believe the funds available in the public record show sufficient amounts to cover expanded monitoring, security and education programs for its clients and communities, without adding additional burdens to local law enforcement and taking from local tax dollars to support a majority privately owned organization.