In a comprehensive presentation last Monday evening, Charlottesville City Manager Sam Sanders encouraged City Council to start “kicking the tires” and finally take strides to aid the hundreds of people sleeping on the city’s streets.
“This is doable,” Sanders told councilors. “I want us to stop getting in our own way and to start solving our problems that have been staring in our face.”
For over half an hour, the city’s chief executive delivered a laundry list of recommendations directed at filling the gaps in the city’s infrastructure. These measures included a low-barrier overnight shelter and other temporary housing options, public bathrooms and outreach teams to work directly with the homeless.
The millions of dollars Sanders proposed to spend on the various projects will come entirely from the $3.5 million the city was granted under the pandemic-era American Rescue Plan Act, part of which is dedicated to combating homelessness and housing instability, in addition to a “significant surplus” in the city budget he anticipates at the end of the fiscal year.
“Let’s dispel all the myths about what can’t be done by trying to do something,” he said. “I’m ready for forward movement. We just need to do something and see what we can figure out and stop speculating on what can and can’t be done.”
The top item on Sanders’ list was a $5.25 million contribution to Charlottesville’s Salvation Army. Of that sum, $1.25 million would be allocated to renovating the religious nonprofit organization’s thrift store at 604 Cherry Ave. into a low-barrier, year-round shelter. Unofficially titled the “Cherry Avenue Alliance,” the 50-bed emergency shelter would be the first of its kind to service the 125 homeless within city limits, a number supplied by the Blue Ridge Area Coalition for the Homeless.
Under Sanders’ plan, that will cover a third of the $750,000 redevelopment of the thrift store, a contribution he said he hopes will spur other community actors and neighboring Albemarle County to also open their wallets. To compensate the Salvation Army for the lost revenue from the thrift store, Sanders suggested dedicating $200,000 annually to the group over the course of the next five years.
“The Salvation Army of Charlottesville is honored by the City Manager’s recommendation to provide major support for our efforts to increase the amount and kind of emergency shelter needed to address this need in our community,” said Executive Director Mark Van Meter in a statement. “Transformative projects will offer more shelter capacity and opportunities to access professional case managers who can provide needed wrap-around services for our unhoused neighbors.”
While the Salvation Army will continue to own the Cherry Avenue facility, Van Meter said the plan is for another local group to come on to oversee the daily operations of the future low-barrier shelter. No organization has accepted this role yet. To sustain the work of the low-barrier shelter, Sanders has proposed an annual budget of $500,000.
“What I know is opening the shelter alone is not going to get everyone off the street, we all know that,” Sanders told councilors Monday night. “But we should be able to reduce how many people are out on the street and why are they out there on the street.”
The Salvation Army is already in the process of increasing its capacity.
Last summer, city councilors greenlighted an application from the charitable organization to tear down and replace its current 54-bed, high-barrier emergency shelter located on Ridge Street with an updated, four-story facility that would double the number of beds, expand its meal capacity and add seven transitional housing apartments.
“High-barrier” means guests are required to pass random drug and alcohol tests in addition to criminal background checks in order to be deemed eligible to stay at the Ridge Street shelter, Van Meter told The Daily Progress in September, something he explained again to councilors on Monday night.
Case managers at the high-barrier shelter focus on helping the men and women who walk through its doors every day to get back on their feet and into stable housing and occupations. If guests are actively working with case managers and meeting certain goals, they are able to extend their stay at 207 Ridge St.
Thanks to this strategy, the Salvation Army assisted 11 people who left its care “stabilized” last month, Van Meter told Council. But, he added, he recognizes that not everyone will be able to break the vicious cycle of homelessness and may still need “a warm, safe environment … to get off the street.” That is why he began to pursue the low-barrier option.
“The Center of Hope,” as the capital campaign project has been titled, is estimated to cost $28 million “to construct, furnish, and create a maintenance endowment,” according to the Salvation Army. Currently, the fundraising effort has reached 20% of its goal. Sanders proposed contributing $1.5 million to the project.
“I am saying to everyone in this community that we should do everything in our power to make that possible and make it so as soon as possible,” Sanders said of the Center of Hope.
His proposal was warmly received Monday night, though Council took no formal action on the matter. However, councilors did express their concern for the homeless and their desire to investigate and discuss Sanders’ recommendations.
“This seems like an excellent way to use that money,” said Councilor Natalie Oschrin. “It’s an acute problem. These are real people, and they need to be treated with care and speed.”
Sanders also detailed allotments for a number of community resources, one of which was creating two positions on a “street outreach team.”
“Internally, the city needs a better handle of what is happening on the street,” Sanders said. “[We need] folks out there with no restrictions on who they serve, why they serve, how they serve. They simply are city staff with a goal of finding out ‘Why are you in this situation?’ and ‘What can I do to help you?’”
Operating under a two-year “demonstration,” Sanders envisions the two staff members gathering more information to better inform city leaders on the myriad obstacles facing the city’s unhoused and the type of support they need. The cost of the team would be about $440,000 total, an expense funded via grants, Sanders said.
The same sort of program in other cities, he said, has resulted in localities establishing offices of homeless services, an option the team would explore for Charlottesville.
While the new shelters and the outreach team are more long-term solutions, Sanders also acknowledged the necessity of addressing people’s more immediate needs. His research into the matter brought him across “pallet shelters,” single- or double-occupancy temporary shelters that are “making waves across the country.”
Some cities, such as Birmingham, Alabama, are erecting hundreds of these shelters to form micro-communities for the unhoused. Sanders, however, recommended that Charlottesville begin with acquiring six of the structures, which come with a price tag of $100,000 each, to test them out.
Another item Sanders touched on Monday was public bathrooms, something that has long been a source of contention in the city, particularly on its popular pedestrian Downtown Mall.
In a 20-page document titled “Impact of the Unhoused on the Charlottesville Downtown Mall” sent to Council in July, a number of anonymous downtown business owners reported they frequently come across human waste from the brick walkways outside their establishments.
While Sanders pointed out the city is spending money to lease bathrooms from property owners in the downtown area, there are currently no 24-hour public bathrooms available for anyone to use. He proposed Council invest in three utilities-free toilets from Green Flush Restrooms, a Vancouver, Washington-based company that offers modular systems that cost about $80,000 each.
Given all of Sanders’ recommendations were just that — recommendations — nothing is set in stone until Council votes on the items by the end of the fiscal year.
That means it remains to be seen where the bathrooms and pallet shelters would be located should the city pursue those options. And Sanders is already anticipating pushback from the community on both.
“No one wants it next to them, but that’s what they say about everything. We’re going to have to learn to live with some of these things,” he said, referring to the bathrooms.
“We’re going to continue doing this work with compassion,” Sanders added. “I’m not interested in telling someone to get up and go when I know they don’t have a place to go, but I do have to help people get off the sidewalks. No one should be on the sidewalks.”
Source: www.dailyprogress.com
Be First to Comment