CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA (CVILLE RIGHT NOW) – The City of Charlottesville has signed an operating contract with Central Arizona Shelter Services (CASS) to run the 2000 Holiday Drive low-barrier shelter when it opens Sept. 1 and runs through Aug. 31, 2027, according to City Communications Director Afton Schneider.

“We’re really excited as Sept. 1 is our big opening date,” Schneider told Cville Right Now. “City Manager (Samuel) Sanders executed the contract on the 26th, that’s for up to $3.2 million for CASS for temporary emergency shelter services.”

“The balance of the original $4 million we hope to use for direct-to-housing in the future,” said Schneider.

One agreement signed by CASS Aug. 21 and signed by the City Manager and City Attorney John Maddux Aug. 26 is the CASS Service Agreement – Fully Exeuted.

A second contract is Holiday Drive License Agreement – Fully Executed, a temporary agreement that charges no rent and officially licenses CASS to provide designated services and operations.

“I can assume we were just having our City Attorney’s Office look over it as we would with any contract to make sure there are no mistakes, that everything is written properly, so we can successfully move forward with this operation and get people where they need to be,” Schneider explained about the five-day lag between CASS’s signature and the city leaders.

Sanders told Cville Right Now Tuesday they were indeed working through the contract language and expected to sign the agreement soon after.

“It’s a structured facility with an operator, with services with rules,” Sanders said Tuesday. “Low barrier does not mean no rules, there are rules that you have to exist a certain way and we are solving for all the various things that we believe are priorities.”

As per the agreement, “Operator shall provide the mobilization, shelter operation, case management, housing navigation, reporting, and transition services…”.

CASS is acknowledged in the agreement as an “independent contractor” and who “may not subcontract a material Program function without the City’s prior written approval”.

“Operator shall use reasonable, good-faith efforts to work collaboratively with the local Continuum of Care and with existing local homelessness services providers…” and “integrate the Program into the existing local homelessness response system and avoid unnecessary duplication of services”, the contract stated.

The population contracted is “primarily adults ages 18 or older experiencing homelessness, including people displaced by the closure of the Rivanna River encampment, together with any additional referral priorities approved by the City”.

The capacity is set at 120, and there will be fire watch operations instituted until the Fire Marshal confirms in writing the automatic sprinkler system is operational.

As for the budget, the city will expend $425,091.33 for “start-up and first month advance”, and the monthly operating payment is $181,693.13.

There are other expenses that may be incurred, but the total expenditure shall not exceed $3,205,786.20 over the one-year contract term.

Schneider told Cville Right Now the preparation for the move out of the encampment is going well.

“We’ve been doing so much outreach there, a lot of teams, city staff, other community partners have been down there connecting with people,” Schneider said. “A lot of people are excited to go to the emergency shelter which is great, and Sept. 1 we’ll have our teams down there helping people pack up, getting them in vans, getting their things moved down so that they can be comfortable and hopefully be happy down at Holiday Drive.”