Tensions flare as $70K fence near Bishop Dudley homeless shelter gets blessing

VIDEO: Dissenter ousted as public outcry reaches crescendo

Concrete barriers along the empty lot next to the Bishop Dudley Hospitality House at 8th Street and Indiana Avenue in Sioux Falls on Thursday, Feb. 20, 2025. (Patrick Lalley / Sioux Falls Live)

More than an hour of pleas to stop a fence from being built around a high-crime parking lot next door to a Sioux Falls homeless shelter weren’t enough to keep City Hall’s plan from moving ahead.

The Sioux Falls City Council on Tuesday evening signed off on a proposal coming from Mayor Paul TenHaken’s office and the Sioux Falls Catholic Diocese to fence a parking lot north of the Bishop Dudley Hospitality House that will entail the city taking possession of the property that’s long been a place where homeless individuals congregate.

But the decision didn’t come until after a lengthy hearing on the initiative, which will have the city leasing the Diocese-owned space and comes with an estimated price tag of $70,000, saw more than a dozen speak out against it, including one dissenter whose outburst prompted her removal from the city council gallery.

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