Monday night, Charlottesville City Council voted unanimously to give $3 million in unused American Rescue Plan Act funds to The Salvation Army for the expansion of its homeless shelter on Ridge Street.
Charlottesville City Manager Sam Sanders proposed this to the Council in October, as one part of a multi-part plan to help the area’s unhoused population.
Originally, Sanders had proposed allocating $1.5 million in ARPA funding to the Ridge Street shelter expansion, with an additional $250,000 in ARPA funds to another Salvation Army shelter project, a “low-barrier” shelter on Cherry Avenue in the Fifeville neighborhood. But ultimately, that did not happen, and the Council allocated $3 million in ARPA funding for the Ridge Street shelter expansion project only.
“We’re not at that stage yet,” city spokesperson Afton Schneider told Charlotesville Tomorrow in an email Tuesday morning. “We anticipate additional conversations with The Salvation Army and other organizations to finalize the concept of a low-barrier shelter.”
The Ridge Street shelter, called Center of Hope, is what is known as a “high-barrier” shelter, meaning that people must abstain from drugs and alcohol in order to stay there. People who are on the sex offenders’ registry also cannot stay at that shelter, because there are transitional apartments for families with children on the site.
Folks who are not eligible for high-barrier shelters for reasons including drug and alcohol use, as well as criminal convictions, can often stay in low-barrier ones.
Sanders emphasized at the start of the meeting Monday night that the City had not yet decided on a location for a low-barrier shelter, but that it will continue to pursue one. He added that he anticipates asking the Council for more money for both proposed shelter projects at a later date.
Days before the Council meeting, around 25 Fifeville residents spoke against the plan to transform The Salvation Army’s thrift store at 604 Cherry Ave. into a low-barrier shelter at a Fifeville Neighborhood Association meeting. Many cited concerns about what such a shelter could do to the neighborhood’s safety.
Most of the folks who spoke at the neighborhood association meeting did not attend the Council meeting. One who did, Benjamin Eppard, asked if The Salvation Army would consider moving the high-barrier shelter to Cherry Avenue, and putting the low-barrier shelter on Ridge Street.
“At a minimum, just switch the locations,” he said. “People need to be helped, but let’s do it safely.”
Eppard also criticized Charlottesville Tomorrow’s coverage of the neighborhood association meeting, saying the headline didn’t tell the whole story.
Two other community members spoke specifically in favor of the proposed shelter projects.
Em Gunter, who is not a Fifeville resident, talked about experiencing homelessness as a child and young adult. Gunter supports the shelter projects and wants people to understand “how destructive homelessness is” to the people experiencing it.
Matthew Gillikin, a Fifeville resident and co-chair of Livable Cville, a local housing and transportation advocacy group, also spoke in favor of the shelter projects.
“The people most harmed by homelessness are the people experiencing homelessness, and I think that gets lost sometimes,” Gillikin said.
“The other thing is that homelessness is a housing problem,” he added. “That’s how we address homelessness. We don’t address it by shaming people, we don’t address it by policing, we address it by housing.”
Local homelessness service providers say that the city desperately needs more shelter beds. Earlier this year, they told the city that on any given day, they estimate that 200 people in the Charlottesville area are experiencing homelessness, and there are not enough resources to help them.
The City’s $3 million contribution will cover a portion of the Ridge Street shelter expansion project, which is expected to cost $28 million, according to The Salvation Army’s website. The agency is in the process of fundraising the rest, looking mainly to philanthropic organizations.
“This is an upfront investment to hopefully leverage additional dollars to get the project going,” said Chris Cullinan, the city’s finance director, when he presented the item to the Council for consideration on Monday.
The agency’s plan is to expand the shelter from 55 to 114 total beds for single men and women, and to double the number of transitional housing beds for families from 14 to 28, The Salvation Army Charlottesville Corps Leader Major Mark Van Meter told Charlottesville Tomorrow last month. That includes a few bunk rooms that can be used for transgender clients, or as isolation rooms in cases of illness.
