Some business leaders asked that the city work to help balance the needs of those who are homeless with businesspeople and residents and institute a six-month pause on expansion of services, including the Mid-Maine Homeless Shelter and Waterville Area Soup Kitchen, both of which have talked about expanding.

On Tuesday, the 6-0 override vote followed a lengthy discussion about the task force. Several councilors said they supported overriding because the council Dec. 17 unanimously approved creating the task force and three business people will be members, so their concerns would be heard.

Councilor Rien Finch, D-Ward 6, said any task force member, including business people, can ask to put something on the agenda and the city manager has the authority to allow that.

“It’s not meant to be a solution,” Finch said of the task force. “It’s a good tool in our toolbox.”

Councilor Brandon Gilley, D-Ward 1, agreed, saying having City Manager Bryan Kaenrath on the panel will ensure the work will be done and the needs of those most vulnerable will be considered. Councilor Flavia DeBrito, D-Ward 2, said it is just the beginning of the task force work and the council can always go back and readdress what is needed. Council Chairperson Rebecca Green, D-Ward 4, said she thinks the city needs to focus on the collaborative element of bringing people together to find solutions.

Councilor Thomas Klepach, D-Ward 3, spoke at length about homelessness and how it is a national, statewide and regional problem, the causes of which are numerous, and Waterville is a leader in Maine in how it addresses the issue. The city is doing a great job, he said, and there is more work to be done.

A community saves money if it spends money to get people housed and stable, Klepach said. He emphasized that the data suggest, contrary to what many say, that a community with services for unhoused people doesn’t draw more homeless people. Limiting homeless services isn’t going to limit the number of homeless people in a community, he said.

“It is the onus upon every community to care for its community members that are falling apart,” he said. “That is the foundation of civil society.”

Katie Spencer White, president and CEO of the Mid-Maine Homeless Shelter, said the majority of homeless people are not the ones causing problems — they are just working to try to get back into society. Officials need to work on how to navigate systems to address the “couple of handfuls” of people who are causing issues such as those reported by businesses, White said.

Resident Travis Moulton works at the Mobile Mart on Pleasant Street. Store staff calls police three or four times daily because homeless people get out of hand and staff can’t deal with them. There is a lot of theft at the store, he said.

“This plan — we need to involve business, convenience stores like us who are losing thousands of dollars out the door every day,” Moulton said.

Resident Anna Holdener said she does homeless outreach and volunteers at the Waterville Area Soup Kitchen. The issues happening are not just a homeless problem, but a “people” problem. She urged the council to sustain the veto, start over and re-introduce a motion for a task force and let the that panel identify what the problems are and go from there. What people now consider problems to be tackled may be completely different from what a task force identifies in its work, she said.

Resident Nancy Sanford urged the council to override, saying a lot of good things are happening in the city to support homeless and poor people, and the task force is a way to build on those efforts.

Before the council voted unanimously Dec. 17 to create the task force, the council decided to eliminate a recommendation that it explore how to better use city resources for all residents. The objective of the recommendation was to explore how best to balance the needs of businesses and those of homeless or vulnerable people, to ensure public funds are spent in the most effective and efficient manner.

The task force will include three city employees, people who work in community social services, three business leaders who work closely with social services or are city landlords and three residents who receive rental subsidies or are homeless or have experienced homelessness.

The panel will focus on how to mitigate barriers and risks to accessing and supplying transitional housing; explore a risk-share model to encourage public-private partnerships to remove barriers for newly housed tenants, mitigate risk to landlords and recommend council adoption; and foster positive interactions with community members, with an emphasis on ensuring quality of life for all residents and connecting people in need to social services.