by Rich Fowler
Staff Writer
The Inter-Faith Council finally has the land it needs to build a new men’s residential facility, thanks to an agreement between UNC and the Town of Chapel Hill. The university is buying 13 acres of land on Homestead Road from Duke Energy and will lease about one and a half acres to the town for the next 99 years for $1 per year. The town will donate the land to the IFC so it can replace the Community House men’s shelter on Rosemary Street with one that can better meet the needs of homeless people.
The Rosemary Street men’s shelter has 30 beds and 20 floor spaces. The new shelter on Homestead Road will have about 50 beds, plus about five more for residents with medical problems that require them to be separated from the rest of the residents. It will also provide medical services for the women and children who live at the nearby HomeStart shelter for homeless women and children.
The new shelter will have a dramatic shift in focus. Chris Moran, executive director of the IFC, said that they are trying to concentrate on a model that rehabilitates residents who need assistance.
Residents will learn how to get the skills they need to get jobs that pay a wage they can live on. They will be supported by professional staff and volunteers, and residents who have been through the experience will help mentor new residents.
There will be more volunteer opportunities for people in the community to help at the shelter, which, Moran said, will help people who are still suspicious of homeless people understand that they have a lot of skills that are useable in the workplace once they get jobs.
The shift in focus also means that the IFC will be unable to help some people.
“It’s not going to be a facility where you can come and go as you please,†Moran said, “which means that there will be people left behind. There will be people that are not getting beds every night if they’re not interested in working with the program that we have in mind.
“[W]ith us leaving downtown, there has to be an understanding that there needs to be other social services in place after we leave.â€
The IFC’s goal is to move into the new shelter by 2011. Moran said the university and the town still need to work out some of the details of the lease. The IFC also needs to meet with architect Josh Gurlitz to design the facility and make renderings.
“We have a pretty good idea of what we want to do. We just have to shape it,†said Moran.
Reducing the shelter’s impact on the environment is important to the IFC. Moran said they have an obligation to make their facilities as environmentally sensitive as they can. A lot will be determined by cost, the availability of grants and help from other organizations to reduce the environmental impact of the shelter.
The project will have to go through the town’s development process.
“We have a piece of public land that is zoned about the best it can be for a men’s residential facility,†Moran said, “so I don’t think the zoning process is going to be terribly complicated. The permitting process and all that will be expedited because we’re a nonprofit.â€
The IFC will need to raise some money to meet expenses for architect’s renderings, engineering costs and anything else that will be required to make the property ready for construction. When $247,000 of federal money is released, they will have about $400,000 to do the pre-development work.
After that, they will need to start a capital campaign to raise money for the construction of the new shelter. Moran said the IFC needs to consider staffing costs as well. Hiring a full-time and a part-time manager for both the men’s and women’s shelters would cost around $110,000 a year, and adding two full-time case managers and one part-time case manager would add another $110,000. Extra managers are needed for the men’s shelter because it will become a 24-hour facility. Case managers would help residents at both shelters get the help they need to get back into the community.
The IFC wants to consolidate its remaining services in downtown Chapel Hill and Carrboro into one facility by 2012. About 1,260 homes depend on the food pantry every month. Moran said that the pantry and kitchen have to be in the downtown area. “You can’t expect people to go out to Homestead Road or farther out to eat a meal and go back to work in a half an hour,†he said.
In 2007, the food pantry in Carrboro provided over 9,200 bags of food and 700 holiday meals to local residents and the community kitchen on Rosemary Street in Chapel Hill served over 89,000 meals.
“My hope is that the other governments will join this unusual and dynamic partnership that’s been formed to settle the question about where the food pantry and the community kitchen are going to be co-located,†Moran said.
I felt confused when I read this story. A few years ago, when there was an attempt to move the shelter out of downtown, the church I attended (and other IFC-affiliated churches) fought against the move, saying it was an attempt by downtown business owners to get homeless people off Franklin Street, and that it would not benefit the homeless. The move was abandoned, and then the downtown site was renovated.
This move seems to be different, and emphasis is put on the new programs that will be available, but I still feel like I’m missing something. Were there previous articles on the subject that I missed? How did the move come about–was there no opposition to it?
I just felt surprised to read about it so suddenly, and got the feeling, reading the article, that the move was being pitched in a very favorable way. I wondered if there was more to the story than what I read.
In any case, with our free buses, shelter residents will still be able to get downtown, so it doesn’t seem to be the same situation as years ago. but if anyone knows more about the situation, I’d be interested to read about it.