Charlottesville is a step closer to hosting a low-barrier homeless shelter after City Hall announced last week officials would be moving to acquire an office building on Charlottesville’s northern edge for that purpose.
While officials and residents agreed that the location, a prominent property fronting the U.S. 250 Bypass in the city’s Meadows neighborhood, isn’t ideal, after years of back-and-forth, it is clear there are few, if any, properties that meet the criteria of every stakeholder.
Outweighing the need for the perfect location is the urgent need for a low-barrier shelter. The city’s annual count of the local homeless population in January found 165 homeless people living in Charlottesville. The Blue Ridge Area Coalition for the Homeless says that as of its July tally, 213 people were homeless in the region, up from 188 in June.
Charlottesville currently has no low-barrier shelter.
The Salvation Army’s shelter on Ridge Street offers only 54 beds, but those beds are meant for emergencies and can only be used for a maximum of 21 days. To be deemed eligible to stay at the Salvation Army, guests are required to pass random drug and alcohol tests; criminal background checks also are common.
The Haven day shelter on West Market Street does not offer overnight beds.
And People and Congregations Engaged in Ministry, or PACEM, a network of local churches, community groups and volunteers, only offers services to the homeless in the colder months. From late November to April, PACEM’s overnight emergency shelter has capacity for roughly 25 people.
“The priority that has been expressed … is that we have a great need for low-barrier shelter. That is what I have committed to working on for two years now,” Charlottesville City Manager Sam Sanders told City Council at its Oct. 6 meeting. “We have successfully found an opportunity to acquire a substantial piece of property, not just the building itself, but the land that is available as well.”
Sanders told Council the city is prepared to spend $6.2 million on the 3.8-acre property at 2000 Holiday Drive. The real estate is home to a 27,000-square-foot, two-story, brick, Jeffersonian office building built in 1964 that once housed the headquarters of Lakeland Tours, now WorldStrides, an educational travel and tour company. WorldStrides today is headquartered on East Water Street in downtown Charlottesville.
Lakeland Tours sold the Holiday Drive real estate in 2001 to an entity called Holiday Drive LLC for $2.6 million. It traded hands again in 2008 to MIS Property LLC, its current owner, for $4.6 million. It was assessed earlier this year for $6.4 million. MIS Property’s listed agent is Mark Krebs, a wealth management adviser at Ivy Wealth Partners just west of city limits.
The cost of redeveloping the Holiday Drive space is not yet known, but the city “plans to engage with various non-profit service providers regarding the operation of the facility and the local philanthropic community to seek assistance in funding the necessary renovations,” according to city documents.
The real estate is located in a high-traffic hub of hotels, fast food restaurants, grocery stores and big-box retailers on the Albemarle County border.
The location did not meet universal praise at City Council’s Oct. 6 meeting, with some saying it would effectively isolate the homeless population from the bulk of the city’s population — effectively keeping the homeless far from the services and resources they need most.
“[I’ve] spent the past couple of days talking to other homeless people on their thoughts on the issue,” Charlottesville resident Christopher Wall told Council. “A lot of them feel like the proposed location is segregation.”
It is an irony, considering a primary reason there is not a low-barrier shelter closer to downtown Charlottesville is because many downtown businesses and residents explicitly told City Hall for decades that a shelter would hurt the city’s economy and drive tourists away. The city’s popular Downtown Mall is now where many of Charlottesville’s homeless congregate throughout the day, and some of those same businesses and residents have demanded the city solve the problem — going so far as to float criminalizing homelessness altogether. (Council voted against an ordinance that would do just that earlier this year.)
City Councilor Michael Payne acknowledged that 2000 Holiday Drive is not the most ideal location for a shelter at the meeting last week.
“Is it the most centrally located place in the city possible? It’s true it’s not, but it is still near a bus line. It’s walkable to grocery stores. A shuttle could get people to anywhere in Charlottesville pretty quickly,” he said.
Sanders told Council that others sites are still being considered, but that 2000 Holiday Drive remains his focus.
“This is where we’re focusing at this time, because the scope of the problem is so big and there’s so much more that needs to be done,” he said.
The city is expected to hold a public hearing on the acquisition of the property during an Oct. 20 Council meeting with a Nov. 20 closing date in mind.
Source: www.dailyprogress.com
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