Three Sylva sites identified for possible homeless shelter

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Three Sylva sites identified for possible homeless shelter

fr jaxhomeless A plan to create a homeless shelter next to Mark Watson Park in Sylva is dead, but Jackson Neighbors in Need isn’t giving up on having a shelter in place by the time cold weather hits again.

“There’s hope,” said Bob Cochran, Neighbors in Need board member and director of Jackson County social services. “We’re just trying to look around and see what’s available at this point.”

Cochran said the organization has so far identified three properties, all in Sylva town limits, as potential shelter sites. But how long it might take to choose a place and get it ready to house Jackson’s homeless will depend mightily upon the condition of the building, feedback from the neighbors and the site’s suitability.

For instance, Cochran said, he’s hoping to find a site that’s on the route for Jackson County Transit so that clients will have a way to reach services such as social services, mental health appointments, vocational rehabilitation and meals at The Community Table.

In the meantime, Neighbors in Need has a contingency plan — a motel that’s outside of town limits but had agreed to a lower rate than the Economy Inn, across the street from Mark Watson Park, where the organization had been putting people up for the last five winters. If they went that route, Neighbors in Need would also have to organize a transportation system to and from the shelter.

“If we don’t come up with something in the way of a new building, that will become our number one plan, but the long-term hope is to still have a standalone facility that we can develop a program with case management services and try to connect people with permanent housing and the support services that they need to be independent and self-sustaining,” Cochran said.

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Looking for a home

Neighbors in Need had thought they had that standalone facility in the bag last year as they prepared to sign a lease for a property on Dills Cove Road owned by the Evergreen Foundation, which has given substantial grant support to Neighbors in Need through the years. The deal fell through at the last minute, however, due to town zoning regulations regarding group homes, and the organization turned its eye to the county’s old rescue squad building, located on Main Street just east of Mark Watson Park and at the base of the hill on which the historic courthouse-turned-library stands.

“We’d been working on this now since February and had very positive responses from the commissioners, so it’s really been very difficult to find out this late and this close,” said Veronica Nicholas, co-chair of Neighbors in Need’s shelter committee.

Though commissioners told Neighbors in Need in February that they were generally in favor of establishing a homeless shelter, they also posed a myriad of questions as to exactly how much the renovations would cost and where the money would come from. The discussion was resurrected at work sessions later on in the year until June 16, when commissioners made a final decision to nix the concept of a shelter in the old rescue squad building altogether.

A lot of the reasoning had to do with concerns commissioners were hearing from residents and business owners in the area.

“I just had privately had a lot of discussion with people in the law enforcement community, municipal government, private nonprofits, DSS — the full spectrum of people that would be involved — and they had some reservations,” said Commission Chairman Brian McMahan.

The shelter would have been right at the entrance to town, and some of those people questioned whether such high visibility would have a negative impact on the attractiveness of downtown. They also worried about safety issues resulting from those who stayed at the shelter — especially anyone with an addiction issue — hanging out at the park during the day.

“Mark Watson Park is right next door, and families go there and I’m just concerned with a shelter that close,” McMahan said. “Would the park be full of people all day that are homeless?”

Nicholas bristled upon hearing the relayed concern. Most of the people who use the shelter, she said, are parents with children who have fallen on hard times. Mental illness is a common issue that the organization’s clients deal with — 36 of 66 visitors last year had some form of it — but substance abuse is a less prevalent issue, with only five people last year identified as having a problem. People who are found to be using such substances are asked to leave, Nicholas said, though adding that currently the organization does not do drug or alcohol testing.

“We have had problems in terms of people using alcohol, which is going against our laws, and they are asked to leave the shelter and they have done so,” Nicholas said. “But it is a stereotype that every homeless person is a drunk person or a drug abuser. That is not the case.”

To prove the point, Nicholas said, until now people in need of winter shelter have been staying at the motel almost directly across the street from the rescue squad building, without complaints arising about homeless people loitering.

“I would say a lot of folks don’t know where those homeless have been housed before to make a statement like that,” agreed Commissioner Vicki Greene, who had been a proponent of converting the rescue squad building to a homeless shelter.

A catch 22

Greene didn’t have a problem with the location itself so much as with the state of the organization. Neighbors in Need had hired a case manager to help clients get connected with resources and find permanent housing, but the grant for that position recently ended. While Neighbors in Need has been working to find and apply for grants to replace the funding, there was no guarantee that it would have someone in place by the time the shelter opened.

“They didn’t seem to me to be as prepared to do this as maybe they should be,” said Commissioner Boyce Dietz. “We don’t need to jump into it and then realize we weren’t ready.”

Nicholas, meanwhile, said that she was hoping commissioners would come through with the location so that the grant-getting process for other needs — like a case manager — would be easier.

“You can’t write grants without the assurance that you’ll have a place to use them,” she said. “It’s kind of a catch 22.”

That’s not to say that Neighbors in Need is going at the project penniless. They recently secured a $25,000 grant from the Episcopal Diocese of Western North Carolina to go toward a shelter — location unspecified — and though they vetoed the rescue squad location, commissioners agreed to kick in $10,000 more for a shelter at a different site in addition to the $10,000 the county allotted toward the organization’s operations for 2015-16. Neighbors in Need itself has earmarked an additional $15,000 for the project, though they would have to whittle away at some of that money over the winter if they wind up having to use motel rooms again this year.

Cochran’s grateful for commissioners’ monetary pledge and hopeful all that effort will come to a good end.

“Things happen for a reason, and some good things could still happen,” he said. “We just have to stay in the game and focused and moving forward.”

Lend a hand

Jackson County Neighbors in Need can always use more help toward its goal of helping with emergency shelter, heating and home weatherization needs in the county. To donate, mail checks to Jackson Neighbors in Need, c/o Mountain Projects, Inc., 25 Schulman Street, Sylva, N.C. 28779. Make checks out to “Mountain Projects, Inc.” with “JNIN” in the memo line.