CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA (CVILLE RIGHT NOW) – The City of Charlottesville hopes to have an emergency shelter open at its 2000 Holiday Drive property in time to clear the Free Bridge homeless encampment by Sept. 1, City Councilor Michael Payne told Cville Right Now on Wednesday night.

“That is the working plan, at this point,” Payne said.

Payne said finding staffing, and funding that staffing, has been the biggest obstacle as City Council, and the working group responsible for planning a permanent low-barrier shelter on the property have explored creating a temporary emergency shelter since January.

“I do think it’s possible,” Payne said, crediting fellow City Councilor Jen Fleisher for spearheading the effort. “I do think they’ve identified a possible path forward for that to happen by Sept. 1. That said, it’s a big lift. It will absolutely be all hands on deck and not be easy.”

Of course, nothing about addressing the city’s homeless problem has been easy. Currently, Payne estimated about 100 unhoused people are living in the makeshift campsite along the Rivanna River Trail. At least two people have died since November, there have been multiple fires and, Wednesday, Charlottesville Police arrested and charged a man with a sexual assault at the encampment.

Payne called the city’s handling of the situation “a failure of City Council and city government,” though he emphasized, “everyone wants to do the right thing.”

“How the city has allowed the encampment to grow to this size, without structure or rules, has been a mistake,” he said. “And I don’t think it’s been compassionate, because I think it has increased the odds that tragedy will occur, particularly for those who are living out there. … And I do think we have allowed that danger to grow beyond what was the compassionate or right thing to do.”

Now, city officials have said the goal is to have people moved from the campsite by or around Sept. 1. Mayor Juandiego Wade told Cville Right Now the work has begun, with staff going through the encampment to offer services to people residing there, when they’re eligible.

“A coordinated transition of the encampment area is planned to begin on or around Sept. 1, following several weeks of outreach to ensure every individual has been offered services and an opportunity to accept assistance,” City Spokesperson Afton Schneider told Cville Right Now. “After the transition is complete, camping in this area will no longer be permitted.”

Payne and Fleisher said the Council does not need to pass an ordinance to ban camping in the areas being looked at – Free Bridge and 0 East High St. – because the city owns that property and existing regulations prohibit overnight camping and establishing encampments there.

Still, Payne said he is hoping the encampment can be cleared with no arrests, as was the case, he said, when the city cleared a homeless encampment from Market Street Park in 2023. Payne said the city will use a similar strategy, with police, social workers and non-profit volunteers spreading the word through the encampment and helping to connect the homeless there with social services, storage and transportation.

“Nobody was arrested and I think that is absolutely the goal here,” Payne said. “That is not the first lever we want to use. We want to have an outcome where no arrests or fines need to happen. We want to have a multi-week process to inform people about what’s happening, not have it be overnight. We don’t want to needlessly throw away items that people have. We want to make sure that anybody who’s interested in being connected with available services of any kind is aware of their existence. I think that’s the ideal approach.”

Fleisher has been acting as the liaison between Council and the low-barrier shelter working group which consists of PACEM, The Haven and the Blue Ridge Coalition for the Homeless, a role she assumed following the group’s work session with the council in May.

She, too, said the city’s goal is to clear the encampment in as humane a way as possible.

“Even in urgency, we have to do this with care, compassion, expertise, and efficiency,” she told WINA Morning News. “Because we don’t have unlimited resources to help move what may be 100 people and relocate them into a better situation. But we have to do our best with the resources we have, and we have to do it smart.”

CPD will be enhancing its patrolling efforts along the trail, Chief Michael Kochis said.

“We are putting safety measures in place, some seen, some unseen, to protect the individuals that are living there,” Kochis said.

Kochis said his department has developed a relationship with many of the encampments and that informs their approach to police.

“None of them wants to be arrested,” Kochis said. “No one wants to be confrontational with law enforcement down there; they are trying to live.”

Payne emphasized that turning the former office building on 3.8 acres of land at 2000 Holiday Drive into a temporary shelter won’t alter the city’s long-term goal of creating a permanent, low-barrier shelter with wrap-around services at the location. He said the City began examining the possibility of opening the shelter as an emergency site during the freezing temperatures that hit the area in January. Charlottesville bought the property in October for $6.2 million. 

“That is the most feasible immediate action,” Payne said. “Do everything we can to open Holiday Drive on some sort of emergency basis, particularly because that can go in parallel with the longer-term plans.”