
{"id":2625,"date":"2008-05-19T06:49:33","date_gmt":"2008-05-19T14:49:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.carrborocitizen.com\/main\/2008\/05\/19\/ifc-makes-plans-for-new-shelter-after-deal-with-town-unc\/"},"modified":"2008-05-19T06:49:33","modified_gmt":"2008-05-19T14:49:33","slug":"ifc-makes-plans-for-new-shelter-after-deal-with-town-unc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/2008\/05\/19\/ifc-makes-plans-for-new-shelter-after-deal-with-town-unc\/","title":{"rendered":"IFC makes plans for new shelter after deal with town, UNC"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em><strong>by Rich Fowler<\/strong><br \/>\nStaff Writer<\/em><\/p>\n<p>The Inter-Faith Council finally has the land it needs to build a new men\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s 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\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s shelter on Rosemary Street with one that can better meet the needs of homeless people.<\/p>\n<p><!--more-->The Rosemary Street men\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s 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.<\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>The shift in focus also means that the IFC will be unable to help some people.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not going to be a facility where you can come and go as you please,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Moran said, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153which means that there will be people left behind. There will be people that are not getting beds every night if they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re not interested in working with the program that we have in mind.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153[W]ith us leaving downtown, there has to be an understanding that there needs to be other social services in place after we leave.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>The IFC\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s 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.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153We have a pretty good idea of what we want to do. We just have to shape it,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said Moran.<\/p>\n<p>Reducing the shelter\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s 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.<\/p>\n<p>The project will have to go through the town\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s development process.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153We have a piece of public land that is zoned about the best it can be for a men\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s residential facility,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Moran said, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153so I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t think the zoning process is going to be terribly complicated. The permitting process and all that will be expedited because we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re a nonprofit.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>The IFC will need to raise some money to meet expenses for architect\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s 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.<\/p>\n<p>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\u00c2\u00a0 both the men\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s and women\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s 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\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s 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.<\/p>\n<p>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. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153You can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t 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,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he said.<\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153My hope is that the other governments will join this unusual and dynamic partnership that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s been formed to settle the question about where the food pantry and the community kitchen are going to be co-located,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Moran said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>by Rich Fowler Staff Writer The Inter-Faith Council finally has the land it needs to build a new men\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s 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&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2625","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2625","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2625"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2625\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2625"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2625"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2625"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}