Last month I addressed the Town Council on behalf of hundreds of Chapel Hill citizens opposed to putting the IFC men's shelter next to Homestead Park. In a town as allegedly tolerant as Chapel Hill, I was surprised at the torrent of judgment that followed.

The citizens opposing the proposed location are not motivated by unfounded fear of a "bogeyman;" we base our concerns on substantiated facts linking homelessness to crime, substance abuse and criminal activity. These are the facts published in the Orange County Ten-Year Plan to End Homelessness:

23 percent of the Orange County homeless suffer from severe mental illness

37 percent of the Orange County homeless suffer from chronic substance abuse

30 percent of North Carolina's homeless come from the criminal justice system

This population should not adjoin parks, daycares and neighborhoods. Chris Moran, executive director of the IFC, argues that these numbers are similar to the general population: "the homeless aren't any more likely to abuse drugs, suffer mental illness or perpetrate crime than the general population."

This is simply not true. Thirty percent of Chapel Hill's citizens have not been released from criminal system and close to 40 percent are not chronic substance abusers. The Surgeon General's Report on Mental Health finds that 5.4 percent of adults in the general population have serious mental illnesses, a far cry less than 23 percent.

But even if we ignore the clear connections between homelessness and crime, substance abuse, and mental illness, we oppose the inequitable distribution of human services in the northwest Chapel Hill. Moving the shelter to the proposed location institutionalizes northwest Chapel Hill by placing every homeless shelter and resident drug detox/rehab center in the county, along with one of the departments of social services, within one-half mile. One percent of Chapel Hill's land should not contain all of these facilities.

We've asked whether or not an impact study for this location has been done. One has not. Interestingly, there was more discussion over the re-naming of Airport Road than there has been thus far about juxtaposing a homeless shelter and a park.

According to an IFC fact sheet, the no-cost land lease donation by UNC is a key factor in the selection of the MLK/Homestead site. Moran states, "The University is making this extraordinary gift, which I don't think we can ever get again."

In addition to being a mom, a Sunday-school teacher, and a children's soccer coach, I am a professional fundraiser. What I know for sure is that sometimes institutions turn down incredibly generous and altruistic gifts because they are simply not good for the institution. I maintain that this gift, generous as it is, is not good for the greater Chapel Hill community if it is to be used for the homeless shelter. Hundreds of citizens across Chapel Hill who use Homestead Park and those who live in the dozens ofneighborhoods surrounding it agree with me.

I hope that we as a community won't let the dollar signs in our eyes prevent us from doing what is right: moving the shelter to a better site, one that does not adjoin parks and residential neighborhoods and one and that does not concentrate most of the county's social services on 1 percent of the land of Chapel Hill.