Safe Haven

By Dan Petrella/CU CitizenAccess — Behind an annex art studio on the University of Illinois campus sits an 8-foot-by-8-foot wooden structure, lying on its back and filled with dead leaves and dirt. Not long ago, some hoped this small, cabin-like shelter would serve as a model for a new way to house some of the area’s homeless.

CHAMPAIGN — A group of local homeless people will again be seeking shelter.

Abby Harmon, a graduate instructor at the University of Illinois and member of the Safe Haven board of advisers, said a small, “really core” group of Safe Haven members hopes to find property owners and managers who will accept “sweat equity” in trade for shelter beginning next month.

The Safe Haven community began late in the spring of 2009 when a small group of homeless people began pitching tents in a backyard near the Catholic Worker House in Champaign.

The organizers were seeking a sense of safety and community in a group, supporters said.

CHAMPAIGN -- Although they have a home until May 1, the future of Safe Haven’s residents remains unsettled.

The self-governing group of homeless people, which started as a tent city and is now staying the winter at Restoration Urban Ministries, is still looking for property where it can build a more permanent community and win the government approval needed to do so.

CHAMPAIGN --  David Nash knows how dangerous life can be for homeless people living alone on the streets.

While Nash was serving time in state prison for forgery in August 2002, his father was beaten to death by three teenage boys in a grassy area near the Martin Luther King subdivision in Champaign.