Fargo officials weigh three relocation options for downtown engagement center amid neighbor concerns

City staff and partner agencies presented three potential relocation sites for Fargo’s Downtown Engagement Center at a neighborhood meeting where residents raised safety, transit and transparency concerns and providers outlined why the center needs a new, single-floor home.

Brenda Derek, assistant administrator for the City of Fargo, opened the meeting by saying the commission has “made a commitment to move the engagement center out of where it presently sits” and identified three candidate properties under review: 610 North University, 720 14th Street North and 2001 First Avenue North.

The center’s partner agencies told the meeting they serve people experiencing homelessness with low-barrier services — showers, lockers, laundry, hygiene items, care coordination and connections to housing, mental-health and substance-use treatment — and that the current downtown building is hard to operate because services are split across three floors. "The engagement center plays a vital role in the lives of people who are unhoused because it provides immediate access, low barrier access, to a number of different resources," said Jan Elias, who described harm-reduction outreach and public-health partnership work with the center.

Why it matters: Providers and users said a single-level, roughly 20,000-square-foot site would let multiple partners work onsite at once and improve client access, safety and continuity of care. Beth Olson of Presentation Partners in Housing said a colocated…