Couple continues to pledge funds for a homeless shelter as Saratoga Springs ponders next move

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SARATOGA SPRINGS – Saratoga Springs residents Lisa and Ed Mitzen have been trying for years to help the city address its homelessness population, offering for at least the last six years to provide $1 million to create a homeless shelter.

For those last six years they’ve watched as each idea has fallen apart, including the latest plan to create a Code Blue and 24/7 low-barrier homeless shelter with a navigation center at 5 Williams St., formerly the city senior center.  

“To take the money piece out of it — we thought this would be smooth sailing and it’s been one roadblock after another,” said Ed Mitzen.

In 2017, the couple offered the money to establish a location on Walsworth Street, next to the current Shelters of Saratoga facility. 

Ed Mitzen said that project was shot down in court when a judge ruled in favor of neighbors who said the area wasn’t zoned for a homeless shelter. 

In 2019, the New England Congregational-Presbyterian Church offered to convert Nolan Home into a shelter. The Mitzens were still ready to pledge the funds to make it happen, but as was the case in 2017, neighbors argued the area wasn’t zoned for a shelter, Mitzen said. Those neighbors won out again. 

Then in October 2022, the Mitzens were with Mayor Ron Kim as he announced a new plan to create the shelter at the former senior center on Williams Street. 

“These people deserve dignity,” Ed Mitzen said. “We want to try and help them. I think there’s a misnomer that they’re bad people or they somehow should just be discarded and we believe that they need help.”

A few months went by with no opposition, until Jan. 30 when Saratoga Central Catholic School parents raised concerns about the location at a community meeting they organized. The former senior center on Williams Street borders a portion of the Saratoga Central Catholic grounds. By the end of the week, Shelters of Saratoga Executive Director Duane Vaughn announced the organization was backing out of housing Code Blue at the Williams Street location and would announce a new spot soon. 

“Everyone’s for it — just not near me,” Ed Mitzen said. 

In a statement released to the public, Vaughn said the change in course was due to concerns raised by residents. In an email to City Council members sent Sunday, Vaughn acknowledged he and his family, along with the organization’s board president, received threats regarding the shelter’s location. 

However, Kim on Monday said he had an inkling for some time that Vaughn and Shelters of Saratoga did not want the task of overseeing a 24/7 low barrier shelter, given past interactions with the organization. 

Kim said he also wasn’t pleased with how Vaughn announced that Shelters of Saratoga was backing out of the plan, noting the city was ready to announce security and construction measures with the hope of easing concerns by school parents and community members. 

Instead of keeping the fields that share over 200 feet of property line with 5 Williams St., the city was going to turn that into a parking lot for the school and then take a portion of the school’s current parking lot and create new athletic fields. The city also was planning to install security cameras and designate a city police officer to the school during the week. Kim said that when people came into the shelter they would have to sign in and that name could be checked against the sex offender registry. 

Lisa Mitzen, who is on the board of directors for Shelters of Saratoga, said she doesn’t know if the Williams Street location is totally out of the question for some sort of future use. 

”I know that there’s continuing conversation, so I don’t know that it’s completely out of the question that at some point 5 Williams St. location could be utilized by the shelter — whether its offices or a navigation center,” Lisa Mitzen said. “I think it’s a little bit of a gray area right now. I know right at this moment it’s not going to be a Code Blue shelter or a low-barrier shelter, but I think the conversation will stay open about some sort of a use.”

Kim said everything is on hold — at least for a few months. He announced Friday during his State of the City address that he wanted to form a committee aimed at resolving this issue. 

That committee is tasked with three items.  

The first task is to establish what action the city should take, such as determining whether a low-barrier shelter is the right route to take. 

Kim said anyone who has seen Woodlawn garage in July should know they need a shelter for more than just the winter months. 

“One of the most disturbing things in this whole debate — and we heard these phone calls directly — was we were told that the executive director of Shelters was actually saying there was no such thing as 365 24/7 shelter in the region and thus if we put one up people would be flocking here.” That’s simply a lie and you can call the Schenectady Mission, you can call the Albany Mission, you can call the Glens Falls Mission, which by the way is expanding and we have barely a Code Blue center in Saratoga Springs.”

Vaughn said Shelters had been negotiating with the city for a long-term lease to operate a permanent Code Blue shelter and navigation center at William Street after doing research. However, when conversations turned to operating a 24/7 homeless shelter the organization decided to take a different direction and find another location as it had not researched the impacts of a low-barrier shelter.

“We believe, at a minimum, the same due diligence we invested in our initial proposal is required in the best interest of everyone involved, including a clear understanding of what the city is hoping to achieve with either a 365/24 shelter or a low-barrier shelter and what that means, the viability of the site location, 365/24 staffing requirements, expanded services, community impact, short-term and sustained long-term funding, regulatory implications, and the practical impact on best serving the Saratoga Springs homeless community,” Vaughn said in a statement Monday, along with Shelters Board President Kathy McNeice.

The second task of the city committee is to to look for a location for a facility. 

“To figure out where the best location is but tell us why other locations have been eliminated because that I think is important because immediately when you focus on one place people will say well you didn’t think about this,” Kim said.

The third task of the committee is to determine an organization to oversee the shelter. 

“Essentially we need to have somebody who is committed to the mission and I don’t basically trust that Shelters of Saratoga would be that organization,” Kim said. 

A report must be done by June 30, Kim said. 

Vaughn and McNeice said they hope to continue working with the city and other organizations to address homelessness in the community.

The Mitzens said they’re willing to still pledge funds to create the shelter — just give them a location to do it. 

“It’s not something that we’re just going to give up on,” Ed Mitzen said. “We have learned that it can be incredibly challenging, so we’re sort of sitting by waiting for the city and the county to sort of come up with the solution with the shelters group and then we’ll be there to help financially support it and make it what it needs to be.

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