After a fire erupted at an encampment where people experiencing homelessness lived on Iowa City Municipal Airport grounds in October, the airport is evicting the individuals and enlisting the help of the Shelter House to get them safer living spaces.

According to Iowa City Municipal Airport Manager Michael Tharp, the encampment that people experiencing homelessness had existed at that location for months before the fire broke out on Oct. 4 at the 1400 block of S. Gilbert St. There is still no determined cause of the fire on Oct. 4.

“We look at it as part of an overall symptom of a housing crisis that we’re in for not only the city but nationwide,” Tharp said.

Tharp said the airport communicated with Shelter House after the fire to help the people at the encampment find a safe place to go especially as winter approached.

Because the parcel of land the encampment is on is owned by the airport, Tharp said they filed for an eviction notice but waited until the Winter Shelter opened so people had more options on where to stay.

The Winter Shelter is a 40-bed shelter open from December through March.

The Daily Iowan interviewed Michael, a person experiencing homelessness, who said evicting people off the airport’s land will not fix the problem of homelessness in the community.

Michael said he thinks taking people off the airport’s land is unnecessary because they are not bothering anyone in the area and they will just find a new place to stay.

Christine Hayes, Shelter House’s director of development and communications, said there were 13 people at the homeless encampment who are all now working with Shelter House.

Hayes said a majority of the people at the encampment are now in Shelter House’s winter shelter, which is already full after opening on Monday.

Both Tharp and Hayes said homelessness is a growing issue locally and nationally.

The Shelter House itself has 70 beds in total with six family rooms. Hayes said when they get full, people are put on a waitlist, which has at times exceeded 50 people.

According to Hayes, Shelter House has been trying to accommodate not only people from the encampment but also move those currently in the shelter into new housing. Hayes said one of the largest hurdles is getting landlords to accept housing choice vouchers.

The housing choice voucher program is a federal program for low-income families and individuals that subsidizes rent or lease payments to the landlord.

In 2021, Gov. Kim Reynolds signed into law Senate File 252, which gave landlords the ability to refuse to lease or rent to applicants with the housing choice voucher even though it is an income source.

This law went into effect in Iowa City in January, and Hayes said it has made it more difficult for people to get housing even with the guaranteed form of pay the housing voucher provides.

Hayes said all 13 people from the homeless encampment have housing choice vouchers, but they are still turned down by landlords.

“It’s counterproductive, and counterintuitive even, to remove that protection,” Hayes said.

Hayes said allowing landlords to discriminate on who they rent or lease to because of the housing voucher does not help the housing crisis.

“[Housing vouchers] are not the only reason people get denied — if you put in a rental application, you can be denied for all manner of reasons, and all of which are legal,” Hayes said. “But adding another one in that is particularly problematic.”