Annual review of a permit to operate the Lawrence Community Shelter in a building at 10th and Kentucky streets doesn’t seem like an unreasonable requirement.

Officials of the shelter are scheduled to talk to Lawrence city commissioners tonight about having their operating permit reviewed only every five years. The shelter’s permit now is reviewed annually, and officials believe less frequent review will give the facility additional stability.

City officials, of course, can review any permit whenever they see a need to do so, but putting the shelter on a five-year schedule might move any problems that are occurring off the city’s radar screen – which is not where some neighbors of the shelter want them to be. They have organized a petition drive to force changes at the shelter, saying that residents going to and from the building and loitering outside sometimes trespass on neighboring property and create a nuisance.

Whether the shelter’s permit is reviewed every year or every five years or every other month, shelter officials need to respect the neighboring property and minimize the facility’s impact on the area. They need to take the neighbors’ concerns seriously and require those who use the drop-in center to either be respectful of neighbors or seek shelter elsewhere.

Shelter director Loring Henderson recently told the Journal-World that he wanted to work with neighbors and address their concerns. He was only partially right, however, when he said, “I want everybody to remember that we’re all in this together. I don’t want this to become an us-versus-them situation. This is a community problem. We need a shelter and it needs to be someplace.”

Just because “We need a shelter and it needs to be someplace,” doesn’t mean that people who live near the designated shelter should bear an undue burden for the rest of the community. Rather than expecting neighbors to adapt to the drop-in center, operators of the center should do whatever they can to try to fit into the neighborhood in which the center is located.

A number of years ago, some Lawrence residents were concerned about group homes for people with developmental disabilities being located in their neighborhoods. After several group homes were approved around the city, opposition died down because the homes – probably as a result of a concerted effort by their operators – fit in with the neighborhoods and didn’t create a nuisance. Perhaps the drop-in center could learn from their example.

Although Henderson contends “we’re all in this together,” the operators of the shelter – with proper oversight by Lawrence city commissioners – bear the chief responsibility for making sure this facility isn’t a nuisance to the neighborhood.