A South 11th Street building will again provide safety for women.
Susan Isaacs, the Wayne Township trustee, received a variance of use from the Richmond Board of Zoning Appeals to operate a temporary shelter at 15 S. 11th St. The unanimous vote March 12 permits safe housing in the building formerly used as a Genesis women’s shelter.
In 2021, Genesis merged with A Better Way of Muncie, and its Richmond shelter eventually closed. A Better Way still maintains a Richmond office, and staff transport victims to Muncie’s shelter as needed.
Without the Genesis shelter, there’s been nowhere in Richmond for women in danger to go. Isaacs said there recently was a situation where no housing could be found for a woman, who then was beaten with a hammer.
“That’s not OK,” Isaacs said. “We treat women like they’re not important in so many ways. Their safety should be important. We should at least have a resource that’s available in those situations.”
Isaacs said there would be a maximum of four rooms in the building’s basement for women and children to stay for a short time to escape dangerous situations. The trustee would select those permitted to stay in the shelter, and it would be staffed when someone is staying there.
Two letters opposing the variance of use expressed concerns about impacts on businesses with a downtown shelter.
“We do not strive to become a homeless shelter or a soup kitchen,” Isaacs said. “We strive to serve our community in other meaningful, impactful [ways] that are not being addressed.”
The property is zoned general commercial, which permits a hotel or motel. The shelter needed the variance of use, though, because it does not charge fees and is not open to the public.
Chester Heights Apartments
The plan to turn a 1.66 acre city park into three Chester Heights Apartments buildings took another step forward.
BZA members unanimously approved variance of development standards to allow the apartment complex to have 16 buildings and for the three new buildings to have only 102 parking spaces rather than 126.
Powers Properties Investments LLC previously added 96 units in four buildings to bring Chester Heights to 13 buildings and 203 units. The three additional buildings on land that’s now Berryfield Park will add another 72 units.
Neighbors expressed concern about apartment residents parking in their neighborhoods and walking through access paths from the east and south. Gordon Moore, acting as Powers’ agent, said the paths would be closed so that would not happen.
A version of this article appeared in the March 19 2025 print edition of the Western Wayne News.