City Council Special Meeting - Low Barrier Shelter   3/25/2026

We didn't know where you were.

Through Toronto, no problems.

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With restrictions on airspace, there are only a few ways to get from here to there.

The most common one has us going, Iran is a restricted airspace.

Russia is a restricted airspace.

So across Azerbaijan, the Caspian Sea, there's probably about a 200 mile wide path that all planes are going through.

We spent a few days going to museums and stuff like that.

I got to say, I like Indians, but not for a solid.

Not with the same spice in the event for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

I'm pretty well adjusted now.

I decided to sing in his choir.

So my voice has dropped another octave.

Let me be clear.

I'm very elaborate in kind of ways.

I forgot to reply and I'm so sorry to interrupt.

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OK.

I want you to expand.

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Oh, that's number nine.

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They were available to us.

You're special.

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Oh, my.

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Go for it, Madam Vice Mayor.

Is she really a madam or should she be a nice man?

Good evening, everybody.

Thank you so much for being here.

Thank you all for being here.

I call the March 25th Charlottesville City Council special meeting to order.

The purpose of this meeting is to receive a presentation from the low barrier work group outlining a proposed vision for the shelter at Holiday Drive.

Can everyone hear me pretty well?

Okay.

Madam Clerk, will you call the roll?

Councilor Fleisher?

Here.

Vice Mayor Oschrin?

Here.

We're expecting Mayor Wade.

So good evening council members of the public.

This

Late afternoon evening, we are going to hear from this illustrious group on the other side of the room here who has been working very hard.

I want to acknowledge my thanks to them as I've shared with them and the presentation that they made to me recently about this project.

I appreciate all your hard work.

I know it wasn't easy, and I made it hard because the timeline was short, but because all the folks who are interested in this issue have made it a priority for me, I must say.

But we are most definitely interested in the presentation that you're making to Council today, and the goal would be for Council to have an opportunity to first hear from you directly, ask any questions that occur to them today,

and give them an opportunity to think about what they've heard and begin further conversations with me on how we move this effort forward.

So I asked for the privilege, my name is Sunshine Maython, Executive Director of Piedmont Housing Alliance.

I've been on the peripheral support of the working group and I asked for the privilege of kicking off the presentation

to share some initial reflections I've witnessed on the process.

Over the last number of months, I have been a witness to and peripheral supporter for this extraordinary binding of purpose and hard work by the leaders of our region's unhoused service organizations.

Led by Sheila Washington at the Blue Ridge Area Coalition for the Homeless, our region's federally mandated Continuum of Care Agency, COC agency, I can say unequivocally that any historical fracturing between these organizations is exactly that, history.

The holiday drive site and the prospect of it becoming a comprehensive, organized center of support that has catalyzed the deepest and most sustained collaboration between these agencies that our community has ever witnessed.

I know from the outside, it's difficult to understand why this kind of process seems to take a long time.

And to be clear, in the best of times, this work is H-A-R-D hard.

But we are not in the best of times.

This work has blossomed during the most hostile federal environment that this work has ever seen, particularly to the on-house services sector.

It has also taken root during one of the most difficult winters in recent memory that has stretched the day-to-day operations to their limits, let alone being able to maintain the capacity to plan, plan long-term for transformational change that their respective organizations and the system as a whole desperately needs.

Throughout the process, each of these leaders has definitely balanced the daily needs of their staff and clients while navigating a dramatically changed future with their boards and staff leadership.

And lastly, I believe it is critical to understand that we, all of us, as a region, and I do mean all localities in the region, Albemarle, Fluvanna, Louisa, Green, Nelson, and Charlottesville, have never invested sufficiently in our homeless response organizations and system as a whole.

We are now having to play catch up in real time, and this team, these leaders, are setting forth a sophisticated, informed path forward.

All right, if you could advance to the next slide, please.

Good afternoon, everyone.

Thank you so much for being here and for your interest in this subject.

My name is Shayla Washington.

I'm the executive director of the Blue Ridge Area Coalition for the Homeless, which serves as a COC lead agency.

I'm joined on this panel today by Cameron Moore, who's the interim executive director for COTCHM, Owen Brennan, who is the executive director for The Haven, Major Donnie Wilson, who's sitting back here, who is the core officer for Charlottesville,

and Aaron Hernigan, who is a principal at Mitchell Matthews Architects and Planners.

Also, I want to give a really big, deeply appreciative comment to Mr. Russ Mitchell.

He is our facilitator for this low barrier shelter work group, came in completely neutral, learned a lot about our continuum of care, and did so much to move this work forward in a meaningful way.

There's also a list of other working group members who are listed on this slide and some of them are in the room today.

So I really also want to shout out, shout you guys out and appreciate you all.

You can advance to the next slide, please.

So this slide is a high level executive summary of some of the things that we'll be tackling in today's presentation.

We really wanted to focus on transformational impact at 2000 Holiday Drive.

We want to increase our safety net and improve it, ideally just creating pathways to stability and housing.

Our design process was really focused on tailoring the feedback that we received from the people we serve, from other stakeholders in the community, and so that was really an instrumental part of what we created in today's presentation.

Our capital costs have reduced roughly 11% from $9.7 million to $8.6 million, but we are still keeping a lot of the core programming goals the same.

The programs will support day shelter services, coordinated entry, case management, housing navigation, and connections to healthcare and workforce supports.

We do have a slide talking about some near-term uses that we're proposing, but that is contingent on building code official approval and review.

Transportation was a big need that was highlighted.

There are a lot of our key conversations with stakeholders, especially the people we serve.

So we will be diving in deeper into the transportation issue.

And our operating model is based on housing-focused staffing and coordinated service delivery.

And I hope you see that through our presentation today.

Next slide, please.

So we are gonna next talk about some programs that will drive outcomes.

Next slide.

We really wanna focus on expanding our housing programming.

So The Haven currently has homelessness prevention, housing navigation, rapid rehousing, the Laura DeLappe Haven Housing Fund, which is a flexible housing fund

All of these programs ensure steady exits from shelter into permanent housing while strengthening the homeless response system in our community.

Pontian plans to increase its case management staff to provide housing navigation and potential outreach support as needed.

We do plan to maintain community engagement and support through donations, volunteer efforts,

and continued partnership with the Salvation Army.

So although they're not going in the holiday drive project, we will continue to transition clients as needed from the low barrier shelter to the program based shelter that they offer at the Center of Hope.

Next slide, please.

So now I'll turn it over to Aaron.

He was going to talk about the design.

So again, my name is Erin Hannigan.

I'm with Mitchell Matthews Architects and Planners.

We're a local firm here in Charlottesville.

To go through our process, the Low Barrier Shelter Working Group assembled in August and met basically weekly over the course of a number of months.

The Haven and Mitchell Matthews

joined this working group in late September and from there we really worked on so it was starting as visioning and transitioned into programming specifically deciding what functions needed to occur in the Holiday Drive building or at a low barrier shelter

In the course of that, the city announced their intent to purchase Holiday Drive and we pivoted from studying a different site to studying Holiday Drive, continued with these weekly meetings and also incorporated precedent studies.

We went to Caritas in Richmond and also opened doors in Harrisonburg as two nearby locations are doing similar work in their communities.

and we completed phase one with our initial proposal to the city manager's office on November 5th.

So there was about a month break and we reassembled in December and started again in phase two.

And during phase two, we were really trying to refine the program, decrease the size of the project a bit and reconsider some of the design options in the building.

So we continued with weekly meetings.

We also incorporated

A lot of feedback, community engagement with the Lived Experience Advisory Board, with guests and staff, various presentations at different points, more detailed conversations with different subgroups, and completed what we're calling phase two.

We gave a second presentation, a version of this, on March 11th.

Next one.

So in the fall, we came up with two development options.

They're pictured on the left.

We named them option one and option two.

They both had advantages and disadvantages.

And when we started phase two, we were asked to see if we could reduce the footprint of the size of the project, try and get everything into the existing building and still keep all of the programmatic functions that we were initially providing and just

So try and squeeze it all in there and downsize it as needed.

So we have produced an option three, which is the one diagrammed on the right hand side of the slide.

You can go to the next one.

And the question that we get, primary question is how many beds are in this new proposal?

So this is a table illustrating the existing quantity of beds in the left column there.

Our proposals in the fall, which again we're calling phase one, is in that center column and our phase two proposal, which you're going to see today, is in the right hand column.

They are categorized as there is a gender separation occurring in the building between men and women, which is the existing condition happening at Pacham.

The ranges you can see under the existing quantities vary by location.

So some churches can hold more occupants than others.

That's why there is a high and low range to the men and women numbers in the left hand column.

to further define what's on this chart.

There are isolation rooms, which are basically single occupancy rooms.

Isolation would occur if someone is sick, would also be if there is a behavioral issue where someone needs to be separated and they just need to cool down.

There's a potential space that they can go to for and it's an undefined number of nights, maybe one night only.

Gender neutral is just that if individuals who don't identify as men or women, then there are neutral spaces for them to house them.

outside of the designated men and women areas.

Medical respite is defined as sort of a step down, coming down from the hospital.

Those are the beds we removed from the program between the phase one proposals we did in the fall and the current proposal you're going to see now.

And it's to be determined with UVA Health whether that would be a future phase that could be added back into the project.

In conclusion, we currently have 80 beds requested to be in the project now, which is an increase of 20 to 30 beds over the existing conditions that Pottsham currently has.

And that is our sort of minimum goal to meet to inhabit Holiday Drive.

Go to the next one.

This pie chart explains how the spaces in the building are utilized.

So the overnight shelter areas are the majority of the space.

Thirty seven percent is in purple.

The eating is both the kitchen and support spaces for the kitchen, as well as the dining room takes another 20 percent.

Day shelter spaces, which could be considered what the Haven is currently doing, migrating to Holiday Drive.

That's 10% considered the day shelter again.

The health clinic is also something that currently happens inside the Haven as part of the day shelter.

It takes up 3%.

Shared support spaces are spaces that would be occupied

could be occupied either by staff or by clients who are on site.

So the list again, over on the right classroom spaces, conference and meeting spaces, small private phones, Zoom rooms, things of the like.

And then the office and resident support space makes up the remaining 18%.

And those are primarily workstations and offices for the staff that are on site.

Go to the next slide.

So this is the first floor plan, proposed first floor plan.

And before we get too far, I do want to mention that this is considered a test fit or conceptual design.

It's very early in the design process.

This should not be considered a final plan, but instead the first best take at what we need and what has been collaborated on across this group.

The main entrance is down there at the bottom with the red triangle here at the front of the building.

You walk in, there's the vestibule to the left are most of the day shelter spaces, the main lounge, the check-in desk there, a dining room, a kitchen.

The colors again are associated with that pie chart on the last slide, so you can correlate those.

In this area on the right hand side are offices and meeting and support spaces that are shared again in the maroon.

We are proposing the addition of an elevator, which is programmatically necessary because the overnight shelter is occurring on the second floor and we need an elevator that can accommodate a stretcher based on how

often that need occurs at the existing locations.

And then the building is not code compliant as it currently exists in its means of egress.

So we have a new egress stair also in this addition.

You can see that there's some unfinished space and that's we're planning that for a potential UVA health clinic to occupy that as a phased condition fit out in the future.

Gray spaces are support, dark gray walls are existing walls, all the red walls are new walls in this scheme.

Move to the next slide.

So again, the second floor is dedicated to the overnight shelter.

We've set up little pods of about 24 beds per pod.

So rooms are broken down into eight person bedrooms.

So there's a bed, an aisle way, another bed, and then a partial height wall.

And then that module repeats.

The beds are three feet apart from one another, which is

tight, but acceptable and improved conditions over what is currently happening at the Pocham sites right now.

So we have an eight-bed bedroom, another eight-bed bedroom, this one's four beds, one isolation room, and this grouping shares a bathroom, some laundry, bedding storage, and

Toiletry storage.

And then that module is repeated throughout the plan.

So the blue is representing the men's beds.

The pink on this side is representing the women's beds.

So we have men generally on the left hand side of the plan, women generally on the right hand side of the plan.

And again, that is important to maintain gender separation.

For safety, primarily women being comfortable with being in the facility need the separation between the men and the women.

We have gender neutral beds here in the middle with private bathrooms.

And then the little bit of yellow and maroon that's on this floor are for the support staff that would help monitor and provide case management overnight.

Within the table, I think we had 48 men's beds plus two isolation rooms and 24 plus two on the women's side.

Thank you.

And then four gender neutral here in the middle.

There's an existing outdoor porch in this area that we're maintaining in its current condition.

You can go to the next slide.

And the last floor is the basement.

The basement is only a partial basement.

The existing building doesn't really have an occupiable basement.

It has a little bit of MEP space, mechanical, electrical, and plumbing space under the footprint.

And so this middle piece, which was an addition in the 90s, does have the basement.

We're proposing the shared meeting room on this space and some more office space specifically for Brock

Smallest entity of the three that are combining to be here.

This storage space is Pacham storage space to replace storage units that they currently rent.

It's not client storage.

And the rest, this portion of the building, which was the 1995 addition, also does not have a basement, has a partial crawl.

You can go to the next slide.

Coming back to the first floor, I mentioned that this corner of the building over here in the base price proposing that it would be unfinished, but that it could be fit out as clinic space.

If you go to the next slide, we have an enlargement of that clinic space.

We worked with the clinicians that come to the Haven to understand what their needs are.

They're currently operating in the sanctuary space at the Haven with

a lack of privacy, not compliant with HIPAA laws that may be compliant but not ideal.

So fitting out this space for the clinician, two medical exam rooms, one therapist psychiatrist room and some minimal stuff, workroom and storage space there.

And we've priced that independently

with the idea that maybe UVA Health would step in and assist with that portion of the program.

You can go to the next slide.

These are some photos of the front of the building.

This is the elevation that faces the 250 bypass.

Again, this is the front door here in the middle.

you're looking at the aerial condition here's from the street there's obviously some accessibility issues with the existing stairs up to that from the street elevation there is a nice terrace here you go the next

So in addition to the interior renovations, there will be some necessary exterior improvements.

We're suggesting that there are accessibility improvements, ramps that bring you up to the main front door from the street.

And then the egress from this elevator would also allow you to come out through the stair and come out to the sidewalk, conveniently also locating a proposed bus shelter that could be a shelter

drop-off spot for transportation, whether that's a shuttle or a bus or stop or some other proposal.

There's parking that wraps the building, existing parking, wraps both the western side here and the northern side back here, not proposing any changes to that.

The other entrances to the building, we would designate this one existing entry back here as the kitchen and staff volunteer entrance that

brings you directly into the kitchen and then this one that happens to be in a little bit of a courtyard could be the staff entrance and donation drop-off to really designate clients coming in the front door, staff being able to have a back door and kitchen deliveries in particular having their own separate door.

Other improvements, bike racks, tables, providing shade in some manner and exterior storage lockers, which we actually heard from clients as a need that if they were restricted, had restricted access to the building, that they could still get to their belongings in some way.

Go to the next.

and with all that work that we've done in the last few months to work on these plans, we still have not been able to fit all of the requested program that is necessary to accommodate these three entities into the building.

So we're missing three offices, five workstations and two smaller conferencing areas.

And we're not able to accommodate those at this time.

Go to the next one.

Do you want us to save all our questions for the end or do you want to do something?

Construction costs.

So again, in the fall we had two options.

The pricing for those came between the top one was $9.9 million, the bottom one was $9.7 million, through the work to reduce

the project.

We came down to $8.6 million.

Again, these are all preliminary estimates of the probable construction cost based on very early concept information and should not be taken as the exact fixed price that this will be.

It's going to be plus or

Minus, and a quality change, it may go up, it may come down as further information is developed that explains the project and the assumptions that are being made by those estimating the project can be confirmed through further analysis, investigation, or design work.

And that is typical of every design project that we work on.

So we have gotten the question why aren't there more savings versus what we've done because diagrammatically it's reducing quite significantly from what you see on the left to what you see on the right.

And the primary reason is because it's a heavier renovation, meaning that

More of the existing fabric of the building is being torn out to accommodate the new condition because every space needs to be right sized for exactly what that function is so that we're not wasting any space in this building.

So as we pack it in to try and decrease the new construction, we're actually increasing the renovation costs in the existing building.

So that number raised from $1.2 million

in the diagrams to the left to 4.5 million in the diagram to the right.

There's also more site work and kitchen equipment than was developed in the fall, so that number is more accurate now with increased information.

The addition, even though it's small, is more complex than the one in phase one.

The phase one addition over here, some of this was just a single-story addition, whereas this one proposed is a three-story addition.

Escalation times have changed since November.

Unfortunately, the economy and the world has changed significantly and that is reflected in more cautious estimating and increased pricing.

Go to the next slide.

So again, we're looking at renovating the existing building, 26,000 square feet and change, new construction of just under 4,000 square feet, the construction cost estimate just under 8.6 million.

The timeline to do that renovation is anticipated as 12 months.

The corner, again, diagrammed here that would be on the first floor of a fit-out is 750 net square feet, and we would work with UVA Health hopefully to

Fund those construction costs and really understand further how they needed to fit out the building.

Can you go to the next one?

This is more detailed analysis of the cost estimate that you can't read, unfortunately, at this scale.

But it does go through all of the various disciplines and divisions that go into creating a cost estimate.

And what is not included here is FF&E.

Furniture is extra on top of this number.

FF&E is typically 10% plus or minus of the construction cost if you want to estimate a full project cost as opposed to just the hard construction costs.

Go to the next one.

And I'm going to turn it over to Owen.

Wonderful.

So in parallel with the low barrier shelters design work with Aaron, the Haven's been going through our own decision process, which began in December.

Next slide please.

Not 2026, 2025, we partnered with the Spark Mill, a consultant group out of Richmond, to answer this core question, is relocating some or all of our programs to holiday drive in the best interests of our guests and mission?

And this was really the animating question that we were trying to figure out.

Our core stakeholders are our guests, and they are the folks who we are accountable to above all else.

So to answer this question, we formed a committee made up of staff, board members, former guests, one external partner, and we created that decision making criteria for how we were going to answer this question.

Next slide, please.

Once we had that criteria in place, we set to work gathering stakeholder feedback and did a ton of work in February led by the Spark Mill.

We engaged with 128 participants over the course of that month, 68 guests, the majority of folks, and again, these are the folks who were centering in our decision making process, 12 of our 25 staff participated

in focus groups.

So then in March, we moved into the final phase.

The Spark Mill took all of that information.

who created an incredible stakeholder feedback document.

Our internal committee reviewed all the feedback, matched it with our decision-making criteria, drafted a recommendation.

Our The Havens Board discussed this recommendation last week at the March 17th meeting, reconvened again last night, voting to accept our internal committee's recommendations.

Next slide.

So this is the decision matrix that we used to answer this question.

These are the nine criteria we used.

They're ranked in the order of weight.

So most important is financial viability in the haven.

How does this affect our economic sustainability?

And then I'll go into a little more detail about these.

But these are the nine criteria.

Next slide, please.

So these are the areas that receive broad support across all four of our stakeholder groups.

Number four, improved facility and space design was the only criteria to receive across the board support from all four stakeholder groups, guests, staff, volunteers, and community partners.

Our current building at 112 West Market Street,

College by all groups, and the potential of the holiday drive space is broadly seen as a fruitful opportunity.

Guests are excited about the expanded overnight shelter space, including more showers, more storage space, more overnight capacity than is currently available, and more private spaces.

They're also excited about the outdoor space.

The potential is there.

Staff are excited about an opportunity to design a space for our culture and our needs and using what we've learned in our space over the last 16 years, how to improve the guest experience.

We're excited about the natural light, sound buffers, and the opportunities for more staff well-being.

And the fact that this was the criteria that received across the board support, I think is a testament to all the work that has gone into the design process and all of the feedback sessions that we held with guests, with other stakeholders to share the design early on, get feedback, make changes.

All that communication has really been key to getting buy-in about the potential for this improved facility.

It's also a reminder that our guests' voices and concerns have to be centered through each successive stage of operationalizing this project.

The second criteria that got broad support was partnership alignment.

The prospect of BRAC, Potchman and Haven operating under one roof is the most exciting element of the holiday drive proposal for those who are closest to the service system.

Co-location promises coordinated care for the community members that all three of our organizations serve, stronger communication and collaboration between our organizations, and an opportunity to level up the effectiveness of our homeless response system and create that transformational change that Shayla mentioned at the beginning.

But our organizational histories and the complexity of shared governance structures are real and it's going to take really intentional work over the next few years to build stronger relational structures that amplify our respective strengths, delineate clear lanes for each organization and mutual accountability structures.

Next slide, please.

OK, so this slide highlights the three areas of which our stakeholders expressed their sort of cautious support.

These should be read as generally positive, but flagged as like there could be some concerns in this area.

I definitely note that neither the stakeholders, I'm sorry, I skipped ahead too far.

Alright, great.

So caution, generally positive, but flag specific conditions that would need to be met for the project to be successful in the long term.

First one is financial viability.

What's the long term operating model and can the community raise the funds?

Can we and the community raise the funds necessary to maintain high performing services?

We'll dig into the sort of operational budgets of each of the organizations and sort of proposed changes in a future slide.

Number eight, community impact.

This is the category with the most ideological weight in our analysis.

It's really complex to analyze the potential costs and benefits of a move.

Moving the center, actually the homeless response system, moving the hub from downtown where it currently exists, not just because of the Haven, but because all of the support networks that have grown up there prior to the Haven's existence there.

Open in 2010, it was because downtown was the hub for where folks were receiving homeless services.

Soup kitchens, libraries, Department of Social Services.

That was the web 16 years ago, and it's only sort of deepened and become more complex.

What is clear across all the stakeholder groups is that a move to Holiday Drive is not going to eliminate the visible presence of unhoused community members downtown.

And so one of our questions is, how do we continue to serve the folks who are downtown that wants Holiday Drive as the center of gravity?

And then the last category in our decision matrix that received cautious support was in the mission-driven organizational identity.

This was the most affirming feedback category for us to receive.

All four stakeholder groups placed high value on the Haven's existing organizational identity, our low barrier trauma-informed relational

and Family Light Culture was identified by all groups and all four groups are keen for us to retain this identity, which again, will take intentional work.

Next slide, please.

And this final slide shows four areas in which stakeholders expressed concern, meaning there were notable reservations or currently unresolved barriers.

None of the stakeholders, nor our board, found any of these barriers to be inherent or unresolvable, but each will require intentional and thoughtful work over the next several years to problem-solve before holiday drive is opened in operation.

So, number two, service accessibility.

The location of the building on Holiday Drive sits within a triangle bounded by 250 Hydraulic Road and Emmett Street.

The area is not pedestrian friendly and not reliably served by transit and is about two and a half miles from the current downtown hub of homeless services.

Next category, proximity.

Proximity is not simply a question of distance.

It's a question of whether the haven can relocate without significantly disrupting that ecosystem.

and around our downtown location over 16 years.

Number five, mission-driven trauma-informed decision process.

So this is about like the process within which the holiday drive development, planning and execution is happening.

And the big question here that will continue throughout the process is care being taken with community engagement at each critical decision point.

And then the last category that stakeholders expressed concern about was safety.

There are two distinct dimensions to this criteria, physical safety, road conditions, pedestrian infrastructure, and interpersonal safety.

Stakeholders were primarily concerned with the first dimension, the physical safety and what that busy and currently pedestrian challenging area could mean for folks who are primarily on foot, on bike,

and using public transportation.

But both aspects are going to require explicit and intentional planning.

Alright, so based on this rigorous analysis of our stakeholder feedback, I'm happy to share with all of you that last night the Havens Board has approved a resolution that endorses the Haven's participation in and commitment to the housing-oriented, low-barrier overnight shelter at 2000 Holiday Drive to create a housing hub for our neighbors experiencing homelessness.

We know there's a lot of work to do to address the areas of caution and concern, especially between now and when holiday drive is open and operational, and we're eager to dig into that work.

All right, I'm gonna segue from here into our next set of slides, which is transportation.

This really came to the surface throughout our stakeholder feedback as like the critical piece to ensure success of this project.

No stakeholder group expressed confidence that this project could succeed without a dedicated, reliable and frequent shuttle service.

and the transportation actually touches on and influences three of the nine decision criteria, service accessibility, safety and proximity, the disruption to the ecosystem.

So in regards to proximity, this is a map showing sort of what are the current, this is a

a limited number of the resources, organizations that people experiencing homelessness in our community are accessing on a regular basis.

And notice that they are all clustered around downtown and radiating out from there.

The library, the soup kitchens, DSS CRHA, the crossings and other informal support networks are also deeply embedded and aren't on this map.

Next slide, please.

So the Low Barrier Shelter group in doing some initial problem solving around this identified a designated shuttle as the best solution to this transportation issue.

The proposed bus route would run from Holiday Drive in some configuration to UVA Medical Center to a downtown drop-off point.

If we were building it right now, we have a lot of folks who are traveling downtown from Freebridge, there would be a stop there.

And then one on Pantops at the DMV and Social Security Administration, which are very frequently visited sites.

The shuttle would then potentially come back down I-64 with the drop of the Albemarle County office building.

A number of our folks receive services through the Albemarle

Office of Housing as well as Social Services, and then back up Fifth Street, maybe another stop downtown, and then back to Holiday Drive.

Next slide.

So we hear the proposed shuttle service details.

Shuttle bus running a regular loop on the previous slide, 364 days a year.

10 hours a day, so starting at 7 a.m., running that route until about 1 with a break in the afternoon and then resuming from 4 to 7 p.m. to ensure that folks can make it back to the overnight shelter.

We did some very rough initial pricing with John, who estimated that it would cost them $411,000 to run that shuttle service annually.

47% of that is personnel, 40% is the capital equipment,

operating costs.

We're aware that John is probably the most expensive.

This is a high estimate.

And we're confident that if we can continue to problem solve this, we can find creative ways to bring that price down.

All right, so I'll just talk about the operating plan.

Next slide, please.

Quickly, we're going to need some kind of MOU or memorandums of understanding amongst all the agencies, considering you're all co-locating under one roof for the first time in a number of years.

For those who don't know the history, the Haven, Pocham and Brack all used to exist under 112 West Market Street.

And Pocham and Brack have since moved to our own offices since.

But yes, when we moved to 2000 Holiday Drive,

These are the proposed partnerships that will be in place.

We'll need to figure out the hierarchy and the structure.

But we do anticipate the city of Charlottesville being the building owner.

BRAC will continue to be the continuum of care lead agency.

The Haven will run day shelter operations and Potsham will run overnight shelter operations.

Next slide, please.

So this chart is a breakdown of what each agency is responsible for.

BRAC as the lead agency will continue to do coordination across the region just in terms of how we interact with different partners, not only in the city but across Albemarle, Fluvanna, Green, Louisa and Nelson.

That is our entire catchment area.

We provide educational resources, COC or continuum of care, professional development, training opportunities,

We have one street outreach worker.

We do data collection and recording and make sure that that is consistent across the whole COC.

And we provide grant management as well.

The haven and its day shelter capacity will be responsible for day shelter management.

So those general respite services, breakfast, showers, laundry,

operating from 8 to 5, offering breakfast, housing program administration as they currently do with expanded capacity for rental assistance as we see the increase in the number of clients we're hoping to serve, housing stabilization case management, and hopefully transitioning all of the current existing services that are on site at 112 West Market to 2000 Holiday Drive.

Pocham and its overnight shelter responsibilities will continue their overnight shelter management operating either 16 hours a day or 24 hours a day.

We're still figuring out that that model serving dinner as they currently do in the different congregations that they work in has offering housing oriented case management to every client.

They do currently have a transitional housing program for women that they would like to continue.

And they will also continue bringing in volunteers on site from

of the faith-based entities that are currently working with PACHAM in their current model.

Next slide, please.

So this chart is breaking down the staffing structure.

On the left is the type of position that we currently have or hope to have.

And then the second column is existing staffing structure within the three organizations.

The third column is the proposed staffing structure and then the ratio of clients to staff members.

And so currently for housing shelter navigation, we have a half time employee at the Haven and two and a half case managers for Pocham who are working specifically with housing navigation within the shelter system.

They're proposing six at Pocham.

That would be a rough ratio of 13 clients to one staff member.

And I should add the caveat that this is based on best practices across the country.

We are hoping to serve no more than 20 clients per staff member because that is best practices.

Housing stability case managers, currently we have two existing at The Haven.

We hope to increase that to four with 15 clients per caseload.

Housing or Rental Subsidy Program admin.

We currently have one full-time employee at the Haven, hope to increase that to two with 15 community members per month.

So not necessarily people who are staying in the shelter, but some who are coming in who need some type of rental assistance, maybe through prevention or the Laura DeLappe Haven Housing Fund.

So people who aren't necessarily experiencing homelessness, but do need some type of housing assistance to remain stabilized.

And then outreach.

We have one BRAC outreach coordinator.

We hope to

Thank you all so much for your time.

So I want to do a deep dive in terms of the numbers.

Pacham is at an opportunity.

The board is at an opportunity to weigh this option first for the Cherry Avenue site and now for 2000 Holiday Drive.

A lot of the quote unquote qualms that the board has has been resolved in terms of having a kitchen programmatic control and in terms of the demanding structure.

And so right now, the only obstacle that stands in the way in terms of Pacham is, of course, the almighty dollar.

So there's some numbers here.

I want to talk about these in terms of salaries.

This is what we've been doing currently this year in terms of our current staffing model.

We have changed our shelter model to ensure that there is a good staff to guests ratio.

I want you to kind of think of this in terms of classroom.

Everyone wants their child to have a good teacher to student ratio.

This is us being able to respond to the needs of 35 men and 15 women in terms of the current shelter model.

and then in terms of our supplies this is what we're spending now in terms of being able to give folks the accoutrements to make sure this does not feel institutionalized over the counter things like Tylenol, earbuds, you know coffees and such and snacks and things to make sure that they are

that they are well taken care of.

And then you'll see this number of about $127,000 in kind in terms of our meals.

So with us operating from the beginning of November to about April 20th, we are absolutely blessed to have a bunch of churches and faith-based entities be able to cover those meals, which is not a cost to Pacham.

Now to go back from the top in terms of this number right here, again, this is us, or this is possibly having a full staffing model, middle management, communications, supplies coordinator, you name it.

This is what will allow us to be able to help you all get the best return on investment, which is holiday drive.

Essentially now we are doing our best in the winter to quote unquote, warehouse humans.

We want to turn holiday drive to the best degree possible into a housing machine.

In terms of supplies, this $312,000 equates to about $10.65 per night in terms of having clients there at the shelter.

and then meals.

Now, I kept these two things in here because while we are extremely hopeful to get a lot of these things donated to us in kind, I think it's a good educational opportunity to think about what the community has already been offsetting for us in our current model.

And in terms of this number, we currently have about 24 congregations in our current shelter schedule model offsetting meals for us.

that means there's still gonna be a six month gap.

And so we have to be strategic about thinking about how we can be able to ask churches to potentially do a month of meals or potentially asking them to pick sections or sessions rather in terms of the session.

So when you look at these differences, most organizations think that a 10 to 12% increase in their operating budget is ambitious at best.

To do this is obviously much more than 10 to 12%.

In total, this is a 293% increase in terms of our current operating budget this fiscal year to what we would need to be able to do that considering that, again, I want to make sure I say this is an earnest approximation.

So the number could go up, the number could go down.

But the reason that this 293% increase is here is because what we've been asked to do by our partners and we're hoping to be able to meet the need, this is a 50% increase in terms of service.

This is a 60% increase in terms of clientele, and this is a 243% in terms of max offered to the community.

And so in order to do this, and in order for us to be able to meet this need, we're going to be able to need significant support from our community, but we won't be able to meet the request with a child assessment.

Thank you, Cameron.

All right.

So Brack's estimated operating budget is just a proposal.

The salary increase is mainly if we receive two additional outreach caseworkers.

Currently, we have one.

She is stretched thin and is covering an entire catchment area of one city and five counties.

So we are hoping to increase the number of outreach workers we have.

So all of the operational expenses and salaries are tied into outreach.

Turn it over to Owen.

Next slide.

OK, so we've got the Haven's current operating budget over here and proposed budget here.

On the salaries line, $310,000 includes that additional outreach position, one additional housing program administrator for rental assistance programs, and two additional housing stabilization case managers.

To Cameron's point, we want

It's a housing machine where folks are coming in and are quickly being rehoused, not a place where folks are getting stuck.

To that end, we need staff to support that and we need rental assistance to be able to provide the security deposit, first month's rent for folks.

The majority of the folks we serve, they're working, they have income, they just need a little boost to get back into housing.

Some of the folks we serve are chronically homeless, have more confidence, and so these rental subsidies include longer 6-month or 12-month subsidies to really help someone stabilize in their housing.

Other program expenses, these are primarily day shelter and food program expenses.

So this is the estimated overall operating budget for all three agencies just on a single chart.

So you can see what the cost difference is.

Next slide, please.

And as I mentioned, again, we are covering our entire catchment area.

It really is a regional investment.

You're not expecting Charlottesville to foot the entire bill for all of this.

So we're working with our partners in Green County, Albemarle, Louisa, Fludana, Nelson, just to make sure that they are on board with this and it will be continuing conversations.

Next slide, please.

And next slide.

Next, we're going to talk about potential near-term uses for the site or interim uses.

Designated camping site has come up a lot in conversations with our stakeholders, our clients that we're serving.

This would require a lot of planning, so I just want to let you all know that we have discussed this in our group.

We are not there yet with making a decision, and that would obviously involve a number of stakeholders who need to be involved in the decision-making process for that in terms of establishing policies, infrastructure,

making sure the site is safe.

We have enough people to manage that as a designated campground, but it is a topic of conversation that's come up in our meetings.

Temporary or emergency overnight shelter.

This is contingent on building code official approval and review.

This came up to the surface for us during the January ice storm that we had.

The Haven, Pocham and Brack were working together to, and Care Bears and a number of organizations were working to put

Those who are unhoused into emergency hotels.

And so that was quite a lift for our COC to do that unexpectedly, but we had to make sure people were not dying in the cold.

And so if we could have holiday drive as an existing building to shelter people in emergency situations like that, great.

But again, that is contingent on building code official approval.

For now, we also are thinking about business occupancies.

Can certain office spaces move into there now?

Can we use some of the space for meeting spaces or also provide training and skill development for some of the clients that we serve?

So these are all things that we're thinking about.

We haven't been able to flesh any of these out in more detail, but they are top of mind for us.

Next slide, please.

Next slide.

And I'll turn this over to Erin.

So again, this diagram is showing that phase one and phase two that are now compressed here in blue and yellow.

We've completed those.

We are here at the red star, proposing to you tonight.

And what we expect in front of us is that there might be a phase three that involves working through aligning operating plans and policies and procedures and communications and community engagement plans, fundraising and so forth.

and while that is happening that the city could pursue the procurement path that best suits the ability to get this project done and that simultaneously there would be a community engagement phase that continues to involve primarily the stakeholders but also adjacent business owners to the site, the broader community at large,

in the process and helps them understand what's going on.

Eventually, once procurement happens, we would be able to move into entitlements in the AE design phase, AE being architecture and engineering design phase, where things are fully fleshed out through the traditional process of going through schematic design, design development and construction documents.

Simultaneously, we'll have to work through the development plan and site plan approvals for the city of Charlottesville.

And that is estimated to take 12 to 18 months primarily because of the process through the city, the site plan process.

And then it could move into construction, which is also estimated at 12 months before we would finally reach occupancy.

All right, so proposed phase three scope.

Definitely want to focus on aligning and refining the current existing policies and procedures that we already have in place.

We've talked about folks with pets, couples, determining length of stay.

So there's a number of programmatic elements that we need to discuss in phase three.

We do have some outstanding program discussions about lunch.

Currently, folks who are unhoused will go to the different soup kitchens around the downtown area.

Do we have transportation in place for that or how is that going to exist?

The designated camping and other interim uses for the space as it currently stands.

We do plan a big community engagement and communications process.

How do we work with the businesses that are on holiday drive?

How do we engage with continued staff and talking with the folks who are experiencing homelessness and using these services to make sure that we're bringing the best our best foot forward in terms of the shelter design that we're proposing for them.

So lots to work through, but these are some of the things that we hope to look at in day three of this project.

Next slide, please.

Wow, that was a lot.

Thank you all so much for just the detailed analysis.

You're right, Sunshine.

Many of the questions I had you, they were answered through the process.

But I'm sure there are plenty more.

We're going to just kind of go down as questions.

And unfortunately, I have to leave it like 5.35, so I might do mine earlier.

But you want to go first?

Yeah, yeah, I'll start.

So.

Bill.

If you type it in, it'll probably jump there.

Yeah, that was good.

So, and again, maybe you said this in phase, in option one, I'm sorry, option one or option two, how many, because I mean, the cost is really probably, all three is about the same by the time you looking at probably about $10 million.

But

Can you go forward one slide?

108 to 113.

Now that would be slightly different, I think, because we were including medical respite beds, which at the time

We've worked through what that might mean, medical respite beds.

And we didn't know everything about them at the time we proposed option one and option two in the fall.

And we've talked more with UVA Health about what that might mean since then.

So.

because I'm looking at the big picture like we on any given night, 220, 230 persons don't have a reliable place to lay their head.

And I know a lot of them now may be staying with family or friends, but it's not reliable.

And that's why we need the Salvation Army's Center of Hope as well.

But

I'm trying to see what the most bang we can get for our buck.

So if we as a community are going to lean into this with, you know, already got six and a half million, you know, figure another 10 or so, if we're going to lean into this to $15 to $20 million, we need to get as many beds as we can out of it, you know, with

within the right environment that JAWS has set up.

So I'm just thinking out loud.

So when you were

talking about the costs and taking a regional approach to this.

And you're talking to the neighbors.

And if we move forward, are y'all looking to also upgrade your fundraising efforts as well, like the different organizations?

Yeah, I can speak for BRAC.

We are actually in the process of interviewing for a grants and data manager, and so we hope to have that person start looking for securing new funding opportunities.

I'll just share, currently we have contracted with the development associate to help us have a formalized development plan.

Potsdam has never had one.

But, you know, specifically in terms of the numbers, specifically for Pacham, there is the desire and effort to become self-sufficient, to be self-standing and not be so reliant in terms of this beginning iteration of this project.

So I noticed that you all said you all talk with Harrison Bird and Richmond Caritas.

Have you talked to, I hope the mayor happened to be in town last week for the book festival and they have like a 250 bed shelter that all, you know, he said that the city may give

minimum cost, but it's all privately done.

I'm not sure.

We didn't get into the detail of like how that's done.

No, we didn't.

That'd be a great next trip though.

I know we've been talking about they have some good, a lot of things down there that we might want to try to do a road trip down there to see.

But another Roman, you also went there.

Yeah.

I think it would be very beneficial for maybe some interaction between the two.

And certainly I can make introductions to make that happen.

Thank you.

That's all I have right now.

Can I actually ask a quick point of clarification before we ask more questions, just to make sure we all are understanding the thing?

The initial price, I know it's loose, I know it's estimated, for phase one, phase two versions was that 9.9-ish number, which was created back in November.

And then the price for the new option was that 8.6, which was created recently.

but that phase one, phase two weren't repriced when phase three was priced.

Yes.

So it's still a little bit apples to oranges for what those prices would cost since they were not costed at the same time.

True.

And that sparked one other question.

So if I understood you correctly, you said 12 to 18 months of city,

Entitlement Process, Site Plan Approval.

I have so many questions, maybe I should go last.

Lloyd, are you?

I'm trying to figure out, sort of consistent with the question that Mayor was asking.

As I do the math, if we're looking at getting 80 beds for 8.6 million, that's roughly $110,000 per bed.

If we're looking at an additional 28 beds for additional 1.2 million, that works out to a marginal cost of $54,000 a bed.

Roughly half of the marginal cost of the other, of the first 80.

It would seem to me that they might be worthwhile

to shoot for the larger number.

Yes.

I'm pretty certain they would fit into

Option one or option two that we did in page one.

Would it be proportional?

Not having the numbers in front of me, I don't have the ability to ask more detailed questions about that.

But I guess the question, one of the broader questions, aside from the capital cost, is whether this whole thing is going to be sustainable on an ongoing basis.

I remember seeing estimates of

If I remember the page that came through, somewhere around three or four million dollars a year expected.

That's a great question.

We're hoping to talk with other

So I don't know whether those sources are acceptable.

or whether you're going to end up saying, oh, gee, I'm going to have to ask the city for that $3 million.

Okay.

Yeah, we are working through the plan for that transition.

And we're just at the beginning phases of that.

So we'll look forward to sharing the details of that with you.

I mean, is it your sense that that would be a second site for you or that you would... No, that would not be a sustainable operating model for us, but we are hoping to have a transitional period where we can assess the impact of the move on the downtown ecosystem or retain some footprint of the day shelter, but like we, you know,

And would that likely, I'm probably way, way too far away from making a decision on this, but if you were to turn around and sell that to somebody else to use, that would be a large chunk of capital that could go into this project.

Thank you.

Thanks.

I took some notes as we were going along.

So backing up a little bit to the beds layout.

The idea that this is a low barrier shelter is for individuals.

This is not families, couples, or if it's couples, they would need to switch or if it's a parent with a child.

Thank you.

So the blank space for the clinic in this presentation, there's initially the blank because it's not part of the cost estimate at the moment, but

Of course, thanks for the detailed fit out plan.

What is the hold up of including it at the moment?

Not putting the cost on the city.

I think it's primarily it or the entities that would come together to fund the project and trying to reduce the construction cost.

I think it would be, I can speak for everyone having helped in this process, that it would be ideal that it happens at the exact same time as a future based fit out, but that it actually gets funded now and then it gets integrated and built at the same time as the rest of the project.

And is UVA part of these discussions yet?

Okay.

I'll add that that is also an addition.

And the request that was made by me was to not have an addition.

So there's a reason or the basis for that addition to not be in, because the request that I made back to the group was to focus on the existing 27,000 square feet.

But because they also recognize that it was a tinier addition, they went ahead and did that work.

Okay, yes, thank you.

No, it's good to see the options.

I was just wondering if like,

Okay, great.

That's good to hear.

And hopefully everybody plays ball.

The front landscaping situation with the proposed bus shelter.

No, it does not meet current accessibility requirements.

There would need to be curb cuts, ramps.

There's threshold changes that are problematic.

Okay.

There are maximum percentages that have to be met to meet

the accessibility code and that's, you know, will be critiqued very closely in the process of getting a building permit and site plan approved.

Got it.

I notice you keep looking over there for site plan approval.

Okay, for the what's not included, the offices, workstations, small conference rooms, those are for

Can you talk a little bit more about what those are for?

Who's sitting at them?

What are they being used for?

Are they existing staff who would have to be rotated?

Are these for the additional staff?

Yes.

What would those be used for?

There primarily would have been Pacham case managers and staff that didn't fit on the second floor.

But to figure out how to accommodate them, I think during phase three, we would look at how many desks could be hot desks, like where people swap using them, whether there's

schedules that allow people in the space to try and accommodate those people.

And if we got more bed space, would we also need more office?

Would those needs also increase?

and then... For the transportation plan, I recognize that you chatted with Jon about a dedicated route.

And that is a detail that we would definitely need to flesh out.

We haven't gotten that granular on what the shuttle service would.

Okay.

And how does it overlap?

You just mentioned it wasn't that granular, but it is a big ask.

Yeah, that's a great question.

Ah, great.

Do you remember how, so we've been on this in the past.

Maybe we can tag team.

Yeah, I'll start by saying, so there is a southbound bus route, is it?

7 and 8 maybe?

Someone's going back downtown.

They need to walk down Holiday Drive to Emmett, cross Emmett and then walk down to Batteries Plus, which is like three quarters of a mile.

And there's a lack of accessible sidewalks the entire length to that bus stop location.

And if someone wants to pick up the northbound bus, that's closer.

You have to still walk to the end of Holiday Drive to Emmett Street.

OK.

We can talk about this

Sure, sure, sure.

Oh, sure.

Social Security?

I do have one response to Councillor Snook's question about the fundraising.

And I think that's something that we've touched on, Sunshine touched on a little bit at the beginning.

is that we're currently three disparate organizations that are working with very similar clientele.

And we're working informally in collaboration, but we don't have a strong overarching narrative about how we're solving homelessness in Charlottesville.

We're currently a very reactive system.

And the thing, again, that's most exciting about this project is that it gives our three organizations an opportunity to come together

and create a strong narrative about what we're doing to solve homelessness in Charlottesville.

And there's tremendous appetite and enthusiasm among the general public for solutions, even if it's a short-term fix.

When we were hoteling folks in January during the cold stretch of month, the public support for that was overwhelming.

So there's great appetite for a strong plan that's really well communicated to the public.

Well, and to build on that thought, they, you know, one of my big

gripes about Charlottesville, both a bragging point and a gripe.

The bragging point is that Charlottesville has such an overwhelming sense of public spirit that we create all these nonprofits.

We have more nonprofits per capita in Charlottesville than any place in the state.

And the downside is we end up splitting everybody's efforts.

And some of the organizations that have done the best work in the last 20 years are organizations that have come together,

40 years ago it was three or four organizations that came together and said if we come together we can have a first class executive director, a first class finance director, first class development person and so on.

Ready Kids is another organization like that that is actually at one point about 15 different organizations and they all came together.

Yeah, I will say that that topic of conversation has bubbled up quite a bit during this process.

We are not at the phase where we can discuss those things right now in detail, but it's definitely something that we have talked about amongst our boards and, you know, various staff members.

Good.

Thank you.

And I just wanted to, I know I'm one of us,

We do have Anthony Haro on the working group.

He works with Albemarle County Office of Housing, an Albemarle County mouthpiece.

But yeah, I mean, there's a whole lot there.

I appreciate the presentation as well as, you know, I know

several years ago, the level of collaboration between both nonprofits, but also between the organizations working in this space in the city, I think is a lot worse than where we are today.

So I think I just, I know there's just been an incredible amount of work that's gone into this to get us to this point and a huge change.

And I think, you know, how the city approaches organizations and organizations approach each other and

I know there's still a very, very long way to go, but it's very heartening to see that we've gotten here, which I don't think there was any guarantee of four or five years ago, certainly.

A few questions.

Well, and one thought that came up from something earlier is I do think, depending on how this progresses, I think, granted, you all don't own the building of the Haven, so there's not a whole lot of drug control.

But I do think it's going to remain an important community resource.

And I think even if a lot of services shift to Holiday Drive, the reality is, is people are going to continue to go to the area of the downtown mall because it's what people are.

People who are not homeless go to the downtown mall.

And if we expect people to not be at the downtown mall, we don't have housing, we're expecting to not be people who go where other people are.

And that's simply not going to happen.

And so I do think there's going to continue to be that reality and the importance of having a community resource there.

And you've got the library there, which is one of our few free public spaces that is always going to be a place where people are naturally going to go.

I hope we don't just abandon the idea of the haven being a resource, the building itself.

I don't think this, if this was successful, I don't think that therefore means just sell it to whoever.

But I know you all don't have direct control over that.

With the transportation piece, is HAT yet part of these conversations?

And

Super preliminary.

That would not be the solution.

I can probably say outright.

That's really just to say, like, what's the most expensive cost of running a shuttle?

And I'm pretty sure we are trying to add a self-bound bus stop closer.

That's good.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Great.

And you kind of just touched on this, but.

You know, it could be four to five million dollars of additional operational costs, I think, if you factor in inflation and cost increases between now and people may begin to be hired.

That is a lot for the city to take on if you assume the city takes on all of that cost.

I think not to undermine how difficult the capital side can be, but, you know, the operational costs I think are going to be more challenging for the city just because it's baked in year to year, obviously.

Maybe that can be split in part, you know, as the city and county both being partners and funding it a bit, but

what among the new staff hires would you see an opportunity to hire additional staff doing development and fundraising work as well as is there yet a plan or conversation about coordinating your development teams because you just touched on this but I know we're a community with a lot of millionaires even a few billionaires and I think this would be a very compelling capital campaign and a lot of people would

want to donate.

It is, it makes sense.

Yeah, we've definitely talked about the potential for us to all share like a fundraising or communications person.

We clearly didn't make it as transparent that

This is not an ask of the city.

This is a regional housing hub.

The city purchased the building, so the city is taking lead on the development of it, but we have existing funding relationships with Albemarle County that would need to be expanded as well.

and as well as the surrounding counties, which we currently don't have funding relationships with, but this is not an ask of the city, but the city is taking point on this because the city purchased the building.

So, but 100% we envision this to be our regional partnership.

And yeah, I mean, we have a strong fundraising sort of model and team and both Potsdam and Brack are building

their development teams.

So yeah, I think there's a lot of potential.

And with your current proposal, which is focused on renovation of the existing building as opposed to any additions, if we're thinking kind of longer term on a 10 plus year time horizon, are you seeing

Does that provide any advantage in terms of making it easier down the road to build in addition if there's a need to significantly increase bed capacity?

I don't know if that makes sense.

Yes, we do not put a footprint in the vacant parcel that is to the east of the existing building right now.

that actually gives the advantage to expand capacity in the future and put an addition there.

And whether that addition happens to be bringing back medical respite beds, or it is both that and expanding capacity of the overnight shelter or expanding capacity of the day shelter, the options are there and the current design has already allowed for where that connection might be made, where there would be minimum

That's, you know, that's helpful because I'm thinking, you know, 10, 15 years, maybe shorter than that.

You know, there'll probably be a need for a significant expansion in order to achieve everything that our community is going to need.

So right now your current proposal will be looking about 80 beds.

What would that look like in terms of, would you expect that to be 100% utilized?

Like how many beds would you need in order to kind of have the utilization rate of people in the overnight shelter matching kind of the demand that's out there, recognizing that there are some folks who

That makes total sense.

I will tell you, so for Pocham, low barrier shelter is how I define it is a high stakes transaction.

And the incentive is the colder weather.

People are literally giving up the last bit of autonomy and agency they have.

to come into the shelter and then making that transaction for warmth.

And of course, you know, a hot plate of dinner in this case, because, you know, from what I've been told historically has opened earlier and has stayed open later.

And the numbers have not necessarily met the available days.

In terms of organizations residing there under one hub, the new incentive will be the day shelter being there.

It would

It would be interesting to see recognizing this may not be possible immediately, and we may need to be thinking about multiple phases.

But if we were to kind of start at the point of, you know, if the number of people who are unhoused is 200 to 250 a night, and from starting their reverse engineering, what would we need to build in order to have

The utilization rate be sustainable and cover everyone who would use those services.

What would this project look like on site?

I would be recognizing, again, we may not be able to get there immediately, but because especially if there's all that investment on the staff side and services, it's just not going to make a whole lot of sense to have this area.

And we're going to still need, you know, let's say 80 additional low barrier shelter beds.

This is also happening in conjunction with the Salvation Army Center of Hope expansion, which is going to significantly expand the number of beds that they have.

And we're talking about that regional partnership and sort of the fundraising.

That explains how each of these pieces of the puzzle is necessary.

And so that's, you know, big expansion on the Salvation Army side, big expansion on Pacham side.

There are some individuals who will not go to congregate shelter, who will choose to, you know, sleep in a tent.

So again, we're trying to plan for, you know, capacity for that.

But it is really, I mean,

It's part of that narrative that we need to tell about all of these projects.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Erin was pointing out there, there were

569 unique individuals who were served between Pacham and the Salvation Army in a one-year timeframe, including Pacham's six months, roughly, of opening.

So, you know, this shelter will not meet the full need, and we recognize that, but we hope that it can at least be a shelter and a haven for people who do need those beds, right?

Yeah, I mean obviously the question which we just may not know the answer to is once The Salvation Army hopefully completes their project and this is completed, how many people are there going to be who would want to utilize this?

They just can't because of capacity and are we in a place where we would expect that to

It depends on how we're moving folks out into housing.

Because if folks are getting stuck there, then the backup is going to build because folks enter homelessness and they exit homelessness every day.

So we need to invest in the housing resources, the subsidies that we need to bring someone back to housing, and the case management support.

I mean our housing navigation someone to sit down with someone who has income and just needs to be matched with a property management company or a landlord that's willing to work with them whatever their credit risk or

I was going to also add Salvation Army

coming online, but also VISTA 29, which is 80 additional per 100,000 beds.

And how, what, if you don't mind me hijacking your question time, what is the coordination with them?

Is there overlap in services?

Is that part of the chant, the pathway, or is it a separate thing entirely?

It's actually great timing for that question.

We actually just started talking in our most recent case conferencing meeting about who is document ready on our by name list to move into Vista29.

We expect those units to come online probably in December or January of next year.

And so right now we're starting those preparation conversations and we're kind of assigning clients to different people in the community in terms of service providers and who has that best relationship.

So we really want to focus on who we can move into Vista29.

There are 42 units of the 80 that will be earmarked for Albemarle County Office of Housing.

And those folks will come through the COC's priority list or preferences.

And who decides the others?

Hi, I'm Anthony, Office of Housing with the county.

some other units that are also voucher through other sources.

Yeah, to be clear, it'll follow the normal fair housing procedure.

So applicants will come in either as recommendations from agencies like BRAC or others, or folks who just, you know, come in the door on their own.

and at that point it becomes, generally speaking, it just becomes fair housing.

And just final question for now.

Obviously the city is a major funder having purchased the building and you know will continue to play a role and like any development project is going to be a back and forth between

We need to see what you all thought about it first.

And I don't want to be flippant, but I would guess if there is a zoning issue that can be relatively easily resolved, because that's going to ultimately be a city council vote.

And I just don't think there would be a particularly difficult opposition there.

But I mean, you know, it's unlikely, but I know I think building code is where I think maybe it would get trickier.

But I'm also just curious, beyond those things, just staff perspective overall.

I would definitely at least like to be able to to hear that because I think it will be this will have to be kind of a back and forth conversation as it is with any development project and any you know project the city is a major funder in but that's it for me.

Thanks.

Jen?

Super.

Thank you so much.

I'm just kind of so stoked that we are tackling this now and

It's, we're so ready to do this and I'm so glad you guys did too.

So it's great timing and thank you for the work you've done and for the great questions.

I have some process questions, some operations questions, and then some future self questions, but I'll keep it quick.

I was just mentioning that today.

They can sometimes be more nimble in that department.

And I think you mentioned this for phase three, but in the development to now, were any of the nearby businesses engaged in conversations on design?

I would just say that they were engaged by me specifically because I heard from them of course when they heard that we were buying the building so we did have a sit-down conversation with them to advise what the process was going to be we have not gone back to them since this work has been done because I needed you to see what potentially could happen but the intention was for me to go back to them and at least let them say whatever it is that they would like to say about what they've heard

Right, thank you.

When you went to the other shelters, are the other shelters, do any of the other ones share three entities in one shelter?

Not in the way that we're proposing.

Open Doors and Harrisonburg has

One lead organization that runs the overnight shelter, essentially Potsham runs the overnight shelter.

There is no shelter services.

Everyone leaves the building during the day.

Their rapid rehousing provider has an office space.

So they subcontract from open doors to provide rapid rehousing services on site.

There are a number of other.

They also have a health clinic.

I'm wondering about

So this could be kind of new.

We have like two entities running day and night.

So that's a lot of logistics.

Well, we're still figuring that out.

But currently, you know, BRAC has an MOU with Citi.

We subgrant out our funding to Pocham and The Haven.

We are proposing that as a potential model, but we're still figuring that out.

Fantastic.

at least 80%.

Okay.

That's now I'm done with process.

Thank you.

Then operationally, will the, I didn't see a place built in for Pocham staff to stay overnight.

So in terms of those workspaces, that's what we talked about, that there's not necessarily enough space for everything that we need.

But I want to make sure I clarify your question.

Yes, and especially knowing how it went with the ice storm, we couldn't get staff.

So in terms of staffing, it's our expectation that if you do have an overnight shift, even now that you stay awake throughout that shift, it's like a night shift, you need people to stay awake, and so it would be their responsibility again to make sure that they are constantly, not necessarily in a negative sense, but they're keeping eyes open on what the needs are, what may be happening.

In terms of

for inclement weather.

Because there are hotels that are near, it is factored into the draft budget to make sure that there is appropriate rooming.

Because space was so limited, it would be a tough ask to put in bedding for staff to be able to do that.

Awesome.

Our hope is, in terms of this project gets off, is to make sure that they are still coming in and volunteering.

And I saw the volunteers up and the piece about the additional workflow of Hotchum besides running the night shelter would be transitional housing.

Yes, so currently right now we do have a, I can deem it as a pilot in terms of transitional housing.

We have been

In terms of housing that we're using, it's two women right now based off the zoning.

Our hope is that to Owen's earlier point, everyone does not necessarily fit in the congregate model.

In Tanda.

Right, okay.

Okay, and then for, a lot of this was answered, fortunately.

Do we know, so it sounds like VISTA 29 could be online by January.

If we took, if phase three started tomorrow, what was our number for how, our guesstimate for how many months or how many, how long it would take to 12 an hour?

And then transportation questions.

So I don't know that $400,000 is actually a big number for transportation.

There have been years where UVA has spent $500,000 on ADA transportation, unbudgeted for.

So it's that ADA paratransit that's pretty expensive to offer, which it sounds like we would need to do.

It speaks back also to the, the shuttle is staying within Charlottesville, but we're talking about a regional effort.

Does that shuttle need to go back out and in from the counties?

Are we serving...

It's going up to Pandop, so we have your county.

Like, are we mostly serving Charlottesville residents or...?

At the Haven we see folks who are coming from all counties.

They find their way in and then they, the hub, the service hub for all the counties is in Charlottesville.

And so that's why we would love to get more of the counties on board with this.

But yeah, again, this is, if we were to start the shuttle right now, these are the locations that folks are, the majority of folks are coming from when the center moves.

And there's going to be a new constellation of transportation needs.

Mostly, think about the urban ring of Albemarle.

Folks who are not accessing services downtown are more likely to come, I think, to the new holiday drive location.

OK.

and then the, I think the collaboration and the collective work is really the exciting piece, the trying to get this all together and get a plan for us that we can work not only physically out of this hub, but like energetically all of you together.

So that's pretty exciting.

Does the, speaking of the hub and the building itself,

Do we know if this design would meet the new sustainability building requirements?

High performance building standard.

Okay.

And last question, promise.

The outreach, the expansion of the outreach, is that outreach going to continue to be broad on Riverside outreach, mall outreach, and so is that work will

It's not changing its mission.

It's not trying to get everyone into Holiday Driver, Vista 29.

It's just getting more people to do the work.

It's not expanding the scope.

Okay, great.

Thank you.

That's it.

Any other follow up questions after Jen?

This is not a public hearing, so we're not open to public comments at the moment, but please feel free to send emails.

Yes.

I'll again say thank you to the Blue Barrier Shelter group made up of our friends in this effort and this movement.

We are bringing change forward, so this is not easy.

It was never going to be easy, and anyone who thought that it would be a simple solution was sadly mistaken.

I have tried to repeat that as often as I possibly could as well.

I'm sure that our press coverage over the next few days will indicate how the community responds to what they have heard, as some may be disappointed in hearing that Holiday Drive is not the solution to homelessness.

I never offered it as.

I said that clearly to everyone that I didn't think it could be that.

I think what you've seen is a very good opportunity to model a best practice in a single service center.

I think that's what this is really meant to be, a way to address needs for those that we can

serve at this location.

It is very expensive.

We knew that it was going to be expensive.

I reminded everyone that I thought that it would be expensive and that has proven to be the case.

I have tried my best to make sure that I get our team ready.

to engage once we had a vision and then of course marching orders from council that you were ready to take the next step.

Buying the building was the easiest thing that I could do.

It didn't feel like it was the easiest thing I could do and trying to find a building and then to of course purchase it.

But that's the easy part.

The hard part is working beyond what we have seen today and turning that into a reality.

I'm sure there'll be some hiccups and some different things that we'll have to go through and get into that process.

But the goal that I set out on behalf of the direction that I got from council was to make sure that we were making a big bold step forward.

and the fact that we have the Salvation Army.

And I will want to say this clearly, and I will make sure that it gets stated more often.

There have been some who have wondered if the city abandoned its support of the Salvation Army's capital campaign for the Center of Hope.

That is so far from the truth.

We contributed $3 million to that campaign and want them to be successful in raising the remaining dollars.

We need the beds.

It is that simple.

There's no question about that.

But we also bought this building.

We know that we have to help support in the operating.

I have engaged our regional peers, our county leaders.

My counterparts have all heard about this project.

They were all very curious about the opportunity.

And surprisingly, I heard nothing but positive comments about it.

So I hope that turns into checks on an annual basis.

So we have done a lot of the preliminary work.

There's still a lot more to be done.

I'm sure you will begin to hear from folks who will start to give you advice on how

I know I'll be hearing more.

I don't think there's a reason for us to do anything but to, again, thank this group for their efforts, give you time to think about this, which is what I wanted, and then hopefully we'll start to circle back up on moving forward on the timeline.

There is technical work that we will do internal and making sure that NDS staff can give their feedback into things that we want to make sure that we hear details on as well.

And from there, I think we'll be able to update what we think the numbers might look like based on some of that information.

I think they're going to take a break for a minute because they've been a little stressed out by the pressure that I put on them.

So you are free to take a break.

But I would anticipate that we'll have further discussions because there'll be a need for us to come back with things that we may question and want to make sure that we put back into their hands and get feedback on it as well.

Thank you so much.

Thank you all again for the presentation, for the months of work you've done, for the

Brainstorming and creativity and care that you provide our community.

If there's no other questions or comments, do you have a motion to adjourn?

So moved.

Second?

Second.

All in favor?