October of 2023, when we had kind of an encampment, if you will, in Market Street Park, staff and council have really been focusing on trying to identify a location,” he told Cville Right Now.
The effort has been part of the city’s Homeless Intervention Plan, as council and city staff have looked for the best ways to address an issue that has elicited a wide range of public input. A low barrier shelter has been at the top of the priority list, particularly after a proposed ordinance to ban sleeping and storage of personal property in public spaces was tabled at the Sept. 2 council meeting.
Many speakers at the meeting voiced opposition to the proposal citing the lack of a permanent low barrier shelter.
Other locations had been proposed such as the Salvation Army thrift store on Cherry Avenue, but after identifying the property on Holiday Drive, the city is rapidly moving forward with intent to purchase.
“What we did last night was essentially approve the allocation of, I think, $6.2 million,” Wade said, “Ito make a good faith offer to purchase it.”
While the identification and purchase of the property is key to moving forward in providing services to the unhoused population, there is still plenty left on the city’s plate to convert the space.
“So, I really see this in three phases,” Wade said. “One is to purchase it. The next is to refurbish it and then it’s going to be what is it going to look like to have an ongoing cost because it’s going to take people to be in there.”
The refurbishing process could take some time.
The property is a 27,000-square foot former office building on 3.8 acres behind the Days Inn and the Country Inn & Suites on Emmet Street. At Monday’s council meeting Charlottesville Director of Economic Development, Chris Engel, said the city will have a third-party conduct a condition assessment that will determine the amount of work needed.
Wade realizes the hard work ahead for the city but also sees an opportunity to shape it specifically to benefit Charlottesville.
“It is going to have to take a considerable amount of work to kind of reconfigure it to what that shelter is going to look like,” Wade noted. “We have the opportunity now to kind of make it to what we want, what is going to fit our community needs.”
According to a source, the new shelter would have about 150 beds.
Wade also hopes that the shelter can provide more than just a bed for a night.
Expanded services can allow Charlottesville to provide a holistic approach to tackling the issue of homelessness, but that will require collaboration between the city and others in the community. work with our community partners,” Wade said, “Because I would like to see it have wraparound care at that location. We need to look at what is the transportation is going to look like. Are we going to have shuttle service?”
That collaboration will be critical in its day-to-day operations as well.  Though the city is looking to acquire the property, Wade is uncertain if the city should be staffing the space.
“I don’t think that we, as a city, want to get into the business of operating it, because so many other nonprofits would do a much better job at it,” Wade said. “But we know we’re going to have to help them staff up and to get to the point where they can do a year-round shelter.”
Sources have indicated that, while many non-profits run homeless shelters, most don’t tackle the low-barrier ones, where there are no work requirements and unhoused people are not turned away due to issues with addiction or mental health.
The city hopes to finalize the acquisition of the property by the end of next month, and the speed at which council and city staff are currently operating is not lost on the mayor.
Wade joked, “You know, things can move pretty quickly to some people’s surprise in government.”