CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA (CVILLE RIGHT NOW) – Charlottesville City Council has called a special work session for Wednesday at 4 p.m. at CitySpace to hear from the Low Barrier Shelter Workgroup, according to a city release, “outlining a proposed vision for a shelter at Holiday Drive.”
The city announcement said the group, “will share recommendations and a conceptual path forward for consideration. The session is designed to provide City Council with an opportunity to receive the presentation, ask questions, and discuss next steps.”
The group includes representatives from the Blue Ridge Area Coalition for the Homeless, the Haven, People And Congregations Engaged in Ministry, the Salvation Army, Charlottesville City, Albemarle County and an architect from Mitchell Matthews.
In November, it presented City Manager Sam Sanders with a plan for major renovations to the 27,000-square foot building at 2000 Holiday Drive the city purchased for $6.2 million last year. Sanders then asked it to go back and come up with a less expensive option for City Council to also consider, a part of the city’s Homeless Intervention Plan, launched in 2023.
Low-barrier shelters don’t require people to show identification to enter and they don’t turn away people dealing with drug or alcohol or mental health issues.
“It’s not an easy issue to deal with,” Shayla Washington, BRACH’s executive director, told Cville Right Now in January. “So, there’s a lot of different, I think, angles we can tackle, but it’s a complicated one. It’s an expensive one. I’m really excited about this new barrier shelter we’re building, but I keep emphasizing to people, it’s not going to solve homelessness. It’s going to solve it for some people and not all.”
Sanders told Cville Right Now, in January, “The biggest challenge is first determining what is the operational model. There’s so many different aspects of attacking the problem of homelessness. How many different ways are we going to try to address homelessness in this one space?”
Council has “elected to resume a series of monthly special work sessions on the second Wednesday of each month intended to provide dedicated time for in-depth discussions on key community topics throughout the year,” the release said.
The first will be April 8 and each will “focus on a different topic of strategic importance to the Charlottesville community”.
