THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1997, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, January 18, 1997 TAG: 9701180367
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY TOM HOLDEN, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH LENGTH: 67 lines
Faced with the prospect that a federal grant for the homeless will go to a competing organization, the head of the Judeo-Christian Outreach Center questioned Friday why so many advocates have changed their positions on how to spend the money.
From the moment the city announced two years ago that it had secured an $800,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, the consensus was that the money would go toward building a shelter, said Richard H. Powell, the center's director.
Now, with a City Council vote scheduled Jan. 28, Powell said the money apparently is going to the Winter Shelter Task Force, an organization of about 50 churches and synagogues that plans to spend most of the money on the renovation of a 3,000-square-foot building as a day center and purchase buses to transport the homeless
In doing this, the homeless will continue to sleep at churches during the winter while also receiving mental health and substance abuse counseling, access to showers, telephones and limited health care.
Powell said the money was supposed to be spent on building a shelter.
``All of the people who are on the Winter Shelter Task Force and who serve on the Homeless Advisory Committee were committed to building a shelter,'' Powell said. ``We met from Jan. 25, 1995, all the way into 1996. Every single person was in favor of it. Now they don't want to, so what changed their minds?''
``Why did they all of a sudden change their mind to a day center?'' Powell asked.
While the council has not made a decision yet, Powell said he has learned that the city's director of Housing and Neighborhood Preservation, Andrew M. Friedman, has backed the plan advanced by the Winter Shelter Task Force.
``Friedman's proposal basically blows the $800,000 and it ends up with people still sleeping on the church floors, which was not the intent of the grant in the first place,'' Powell said.
Friedman has not publicly endorsed either proposal.
To bolster his argument, Powell provided a timeline that shows a series of letters among congressional leaders who were instrumental in getting the $800,000 grant. Portions of the letters make repeated references to a shelter.
Teresa Stanley, who works with the task force, said that while building a new shelter was discussed for some time, many issues that surround such a project appeared difficult if not impossible to solve.
``We had to face the political realities of (Not In My Back Yard) concerns,'' Stanley said. ``NIMBY would always be a barrier, and one that would be time consuming to address. I'm not saying it would never go away, but we were concerned that something be done now.''
Providing a place for the homeless to sleep, while crucial during the winter, always has been only a portion of the overall continuum of care that all advocates for the homeless want addressed, she said.
In discussing how best to spend $800,000 and assuming the Task Force would receive the grant, Stanley said the discussion began to focus on how best to build upon the network of care that already exists.
Providing overnight shelter represents only one aspect of helping the homeless. Moving them toward independent living through a series of steps that meets other needs along the way is the larger goal of the Winter Shelter Task Force's plan.
``We began leaning to something more collaborative, a program that fit into the continuum of care that all shelters strive for,'' Stanley said. ``Besides, $800,000 can only go so far. As we grappled with that, it became clear that it was important for us that we provide essential support services. We wanted most of the money to go into that area.''
KEYWORDS: HOMELESS SHELTER VIRGINIA BEACH