Homelessness: the discussion about it, and the lack of understanding, is as frustrating as the subject itself

NBC29 and the Daily Progress sought to explore the problem of homelessness...but missed what works. Meanwhile, the city drags its feet...

Two recent stories about homelessness, "No clear solution to Charlottesville’s homelessness," from NBC29, and "Could a new homeless shelter be coming to Charlottesville?" from the Daily Progress sought to explore the problem of homelessness in our area and possible solutions. Remarkably, neither story mentioned anything about the only solution that has worked: The Crossings, a 60-unit supportive housing facility on the corner of Preston Avenue and 4th Street. According to data from the Blue Ridge Area Coalition for the Homeless, the number of chronically homeless people in Charlottesville went from 76 in 2012, when the Crossings was built, to 32 in 2014. And that number has remained in the low 30s ever since. The plan was to build more such housing, and there is some of that in the works, but the public discussion about the issue continues to go around in circles.

"Think about the many lives that were dramatically improved when The Crossings opened," says former Charlottesville Mayor Dave Norris, the founding executive director of PACEM, a non-profit that provides shelter for the homeless, and a key proponent of the Crossings development. "Dozens of people who had been chronically homeless suddenly had a place to live that succeeded in keeping them stably housed. Virginia Supportive Housing [the Richmond-based non-profit that owns and operates the Crossings] has an astoundingly high success rate as a housing provider. Over 95% of the time that a VSH resident leaves one of their permanent supportive housing properties (like the Crossings), they are going up the housing ladder rather than falling back into homelessness."

The plan was to build The Crossings II, an 80-unit facility on land owned by the Charlottesville Redevelopment and Housing Authority, and VSH received nearly $700,000 from the City of Charlottesville in 2019 to get started. However, a failure to obtain a special use permit from the City for the project stalled the process and VSH ended up having to give the money back.

"Our community should have built more permanent supportive housing in the subsequent years [since opening the Crossings] to keep up with the need," says Norris, who was also CRHA’s former redevelopment coordinator. "Instead, we dragged our feet."

As you might recall, the proposed site of The Crossings II, at 405 Levy Avenue and 405 Avon Street, was sold to the City earlier this year for $4 million. City manager Sam Sanders said he envisioned a hybrid shelter/supportive housing development on the site, but no specific plan has been proposed. Meanwhile, the CRHA purchased a new office for itself on the Downtown Mall with the proceeds, a 4-story, 23,000 square-foot mixed-use building at 310-312 East Market Street, once home to Silverchair and Vita Nova Pizza, for $2.65 million.

That didn't sit well with one former city official the DTM spoke to.

“The amount of money they're spending on 310 East Main Street could fund a lot of affordable housing and/or critical support services for the low-income families CRHA is charged to serve,” the former official said, pointing out that the CRHA, which receives public funds, could have easily purchased or leased consolidated office space at a much lower cost. Or they could have financed the development of something on land they already own.

What’s more, consultants brought in to make recommendations for the long-term sustainability of the agency pointed out that CRHA could have gotten as much as $11 million for the Avon/Levy property from a private developer, given its prime location.

“None of this makes sense,” the former official said, adding that the Avon/Levy property was always considered a "cash cow" for the agency.

Neither of the recent stories on area homelessness mentioned Premiere Circle either, the supportive and affordable housing development on the site of the former Red Carpet Inn on Route 29. A $4.25 million grant from the Charlottesville Area Community Foundation allowed the Piedmont Housing Alliance to buy the property in 2021 and PHA plans to build 40 to 50 low-income housing units on the site. Meanwhile, Charlottesville and Albemarle County contributed a combined $1.45 million to VSH so they could get started on building 80 units of supportive housing. Originally, VSH was supposed to start construction in the spring of 2023, but they were stalled by rising construction cost projections, which are currently at around $27 million for the project. To put that in perspective, back in 2012 some people complained about The Crossing’s $7 million price tag. The VSH units are expected to be finished in early 2026 and the PHA units in 2028, but funding issues could certainly stall the project again.

Theoretically, 80 more units of supportive housing like those at The Crossings could come close to housing all the chronically homeless in our area, defined as those who have been living on the streets for at least a year. While the media likes to publish stories about the "growing" problem of homelessness in our area, there have been a fairly consistent number of people experiencing homelessness, between 200 and 300 people, at any given time for the last 20 years. Indeed, it’s the reason why film director Tom Shadyac brought the church downtown for The Haven.

In June 2007, Shadyac told journalist Jason Whitehead:

“I have a burden for wherever there’s a need and there’s a need in this community,” he [Shadyac] told me at the time, stressing that in Charlottesville “the problem was very solvable, as opposed to a place like L.A. where there’s tens of thousands of homeless.”

Yet, here we are, years later reading stories about the problem being unsolvable.

Whitehead, who went on to become the executive director of PACEM, expressed his frustration with reporting on the issue in a 2008 article.

“I have written around 20 articles on the homeless and the city and community’s response to their increasing presence. This piece started out as another musing on the problem—this time addressing the lack of an immediate plan for the homeless that are living outside right now—but more than 7,000 words later, I feel nowhere closer to a coherent statement. It is frustrating, like the subject itself, to the point that I feel worn out and tired of talking about it.”