A SHARE shelter moving into the vacant Calvary Lutheran Church at 7002 23rd Ave. N.W. is slightly less certain after a Feb. 26 community meeting that saw neighbors deeply conflicted over the possibility of 20 homeless men occupying the building at night.

Flyers were sent out Feb. 20 announcing that Ballard’s Our Redeemer Church, which controls the Calvary Lutheran property, had agreed to let the shelter occupy their building when their one-year agreement with the West Seattle Church of the Nazarene expires March 1. Shelter residents were meant to move in Feb. 28.

But, after the Feb. 26 meeting at Calvary, during which neighbors voiced concerns over safety, legal issues and communication, Our Redeemer Pastor Steve Grumm said SHARE and Our Redeemer will process the community’s input before Saturday and nothing was certain after the meeting.

Many residents took issue with Our Redeemer waiting until seemingly the last minute to announce the shelter and hold a community meeting. A large number of residents also claimed they never received the flyers meant to notify them.

Grumm said he regretted the way the announcement was made, but he had to work quickly so that the shelter residents would have a place to stay. Our Redeemer came to an agreement with SHARE three weeks ago, he said.

“I apologize as a representative of Our Redeemer for the time frame this has taken place in,” he said. “This is not how we usually make decisions.”

Residents said Our Redeemer and SHARE have no right to move the shelter into Calvary Lutheran because it has no congregation and is located in a single-family zoned area.

Al Pool, public information officer with the Department of Human Services, said the city cannot tell Our Redeemer not allow the shelter because the church owns the Calvary Lutheran property. It is a negotiation between the community and the church, he said.

Worries about neighborhood safety and SHARE’s screening process were the most passionately voiced of the evening, with one speaker’s voice cracking as she spoke about her children’s safety.

SHARE residents themselves screen prospective residents downtown before allowing them to the shelter area, but they do not research sexual offender history or warrants.

Seven SHARE residents were present at the meeting to answer questions about the shelters and said they do the best they can with the screening process.

“We try to find out as much as we can about the people we have to sleep with every night,” one resident said.

Jessie Israel, a volunteer at the Ballard Food Bank, offered to work with SHARE and the food bank to provide free background checks for prospective shelter residents to varying reactions.

Some residents applauded the offer while others felt it was an unfair invasion of privacy.

John-Otto Liljenstolpe, a member of Our Redeemer and a former member of Calvary Lutheran, said if background checks are going to be required of prospective shelter members, they should require them of everyone who uses the church, such as Alcoholics Anonymous and the 36th District Democrats.

“We would not ask that of each other, of our neighbors,” said Terry Mattson, pastor of the West Seattle Church of the Nazarene. “And, I hope SHARE will not ask that of its residents.”

Neighbors brought up ongoing problems with the patrons of the nearby Ballard Food Bank and the lunch service currently being offered out of Calvary Lutheran, such as verbal harassment, public intoxication and public defecation.

One neighbor said the shelter and its residents would hurt his wife’s daycare business. She already finds it hard to walk the children to Salmon Bay Park because they are often accosted by intoxicated individuals.

SHARE shelters have been located in neighborhoods for long periods of time, such as 16 years at St. John’s Lutheran on Phinney Avenue North, and crime rates often decline. Shelter residents want to keep the neighborhood crime free so as not to endanger their sleeping arrangements, he said.

“Those guys that are drunk on your doorstep, more than likely the gentlemen here leaving the shelter in the morning are going to kick them in the butt because we don’t want them in the neighborhood either,” he said.

Carol Jensen, pastor at St. John’s, said there have only five or six 911 calls in the history of the 16-year history of the shelter there, and Mattson said SHARE is always on top of any incidents and have a strong relationship with the police.

Neighbor comments at the meeting seemed to get more positive as the night wore on, with some expressing their welcome and desire to help in any way.

“I can’t imagine a more appropriate use for an empty building than to house people who don’t have a place to stay,” neighbor Joseph Azel said.”

At the end of the meeting, neighbors still had concerns and expressed desire for further discussion with Our Redeemer and SHARE, and the future of the shelter at Calvary Lutheran was up in the air.

“I wish we had some of our neighbors from our current location here because they love us,” said one SHARE resident. “Give us a chance. If it doesn’t work, we can be gone in 24 hours.”

SHARE is a city-funded organization with 15 shelters in Seattle. Residents are required to be sober and are forbidden from being within a two-block radius of the shelter during the day.

If the shelter is moved into Calvary Lutheran, it would most likely be there for one year before moving back to West Seattle.