Back in December, when a divided Lebanon City Council enacted an ordinance prohibiting camping or overnight parking on city-owned land, we — and probably other critics — assumed that the ban was the beginning and the end of the official effort to address homelessness in Lebanon. Rarely have we been happier to see our expectations confounded than in this instance.

Last week brought news that two Upper Valley nonprofit organizations, Twin Pines Housing Trust and the Upper Valley Haven, are teaming up on a proposal to buy an apartment building at 10 Parkhurst St. in Lebanon and renovate its 18 studio apartments into federally subsidized rental housing for people who have been homeless for 12 continuous months or on four separate occasions over the previous three years. Besides being centrally located and having ready access to public transportation and social services, the building itself is physically well suited to the project, according to Andrew Winter, executive director of Twin Pines, which will secure the funding and provide the housing expertise. For its part, the Haven will handle case management and maintain a presence in the building.

 Ironically, this joint endeavor appears to be the happy byproduct of the process that ultimately led the council to adopt the homelessness ordinance in the first place. As staff writer Tim Camerato reported, city officials created a task force to study the problem last spring as they grappled with an encampment of homeless people on city-owned land off Route 12A. The task force was dissolved when the ordinance was passed, but representatives of the social service agencies involved continued to meet to try to address the issue in a more comprehensive way than does the ordinance, which in our view was rightly criticized as being punitive as well as of doubtful constitutionality.

Appearing before the council the night the ordinance was enacted last December, the Rev. Rebecca Girrell, pastor of the United Methodist Church, perhaps spoke for many when she said, “If our city . . . is not able to provide its residents with accessible housing and with adequate services for individuals, we cannot then turn around and punish people for the conditions under which they are surviving.” Here is an opportunity to help remedy the lack of housing and services that Girrell decried. 

To their credit, several councilors welcomed the Parkhurst Street proposal when interviewed by Camerato last week, demonstrating that the council was not merely paying lip service to helping the homeless while simultaneously attempting to cast them out of public sight and mind when it passed the ordinance. “I do think that hopefully this will turn out to be a really positive success story for the power of putting the right people together,” said Councilor Karen Liot Hill, who was a member of the homelessness task force. Hill went on to acknowledge that the problem is bigger than any one project can fix. “While this is hopefully a great example of a success that will make a big difference,” she said, “I know that it’s not the end of the story and that there’s still going to be work to do.”

There certainly will be more to do, but as Sara Kobylenski, executive director of the Haven, noted, homeless people often succeed when they have a place to live, rent subsidies and access to services, all of which would be provided under the Parkhurst Street plan. If it comes to pass, this project could mark a promising step toward the goal of not merely sheltering homeless people but helping them attain a stable life trajectory.