CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA (CVILLE RIGHT NOW) – On the heels of public comment two weeks ago when City Council floated an ordinance about handling encampments on public rights-of-way, City Manager Sam Sanders provided a detailed progress report on efforts over the last two years attempting to improve the situation of unhoused in the city, and noted a number of properties and options they’re looking at to provide the needed services. Sanders presented a timeline, which is available by clicking here on the City Manager’s portion of the Charlottesville website, and said it’s going to take everyone to take this on.

“This is the entire city’s problem. We must address it. It’s not the people that is the problem, it is what we have to focus on to address their needs,” Sanders said.

In fact, he said he’s mentioned to surrounding county leaders that homelessness is the top city priority, but it is not only the city’s problem. County leaders have been active in some of the efforts Sanders outlined Monday night.

He mentioned an effort with Charlottesville Redevelopment and Housing Association Director John Sales about possibly using some vacant CRHA properties f0r possible temporary shelter and emergency housing options. Calling it a “tiny village” concept, Sanders said this will also require a case management partnership with a homeless services provider.

He touched on the March 2024 acquisition of the Avon and Levy properties from CRHA which CvilleRightNow reported at the time was “for the purpose of some sort of facility that would incorporate shelter beds.” Click here for that report.

Sanders Monday night told Council there was no specific plan for that site upon purchase for redevelopment. He said deep conversations were being held at the time for homeless interventions, and the site is “a great opportunity to produce housing units”.

“Council was advised that there was even more flexibility in considering the acquisition to activate once clarity is reached with the planned development projects in various stages of design and funding pursuit.”

Sanders said Monday night, “I would like the city to consider building what is needed based on what we know what we continue to see as gaps.”

“I think we’re close to being able to figure that out, and you’ll see that come up later,” Sanders said.

He noted the city is still examining the Salvation Army offer of its Cherry Avenue thrift store space for a low-barrier shelter. Sanders said city and county leaders made a trip to the Valley to look at Harrisonburg-Rockingham County’s new homelessness receiving center in May of last year, which features low-barrier day and overnight services in a purpose-built location, in a public-private collaboration. In July 2024, Mayor JuanDiego Wade met with PACEM board members to discuss the possible low-barrier shelter on Cherry Avenue in partnership with the Salvation Army, and invited PACEM to run it and present an operations plan. He offered the Salvation Army an opportunity to operate the shelter, also, if they could obtain permission to do so.

He presented that later that year, in December 2024, Mayor Wade and Vice Mayor Brian Pinkston met with the Fifeville Neighborhood Association to discuss the Cherry Avenue shelter.

“They were met with a lot of discussion and opinion as to why that would not be a good idea,” Sanders said.

He said he was met with the same thing when went in January. There were subsequent meetings with members of BRACH, PACEM, The Haven, and the Salvation Army participating which expanded out toward the discussion of homelessness in the city in general.

“I continue to remind everyone it will take all of us we can support (focusing on the needs of the unhoused), and that is also being uncomfortable… and that is something we can’t forget,” Sanders told Council.

Sanders said the city needs to continue to strengthen the continuum of care, which Council has addressed in the fiscal 2026 budget, and there’s critical needs for 24/7 detox and other emergency mental health beds.

Sanders and staff continue to assess the population in need.

“We need a family-focused shelter facility to ensure family units remain intact,” Sanders reported.

“We need a facility to service specific needs of seniors experiencing homelessness, which is a growing population by all accounts.”

Also, the numbers change according to seasons. “We need to make sure we’re conducting an annual point-in-time count in the winter and summer, so we can accurately measure what’s happening in our community because we know it’s changing.”

City Councilor Natalie Oschrin said they’ve been receiving a lot of feedback after the encampment ordinance was proposed and tabled.

She told WINA Morning News Tuesday while she did not support the ordinance, “What it did was kind of galvanize the community in some pretty vocal and supportive momentum towards ‘we really need to find a solution’.”

“So, a point I made last week and I made again last night is that’s going to cost money.”

“So when we come to the public and say we have a building we want to buy, or we have a program we want to fund, or we have a contractor we want to work with, that’s going to cost money and we need to keep that momentum up and support that,” Oschrin said.

Now, how to pay for it would be “to be determined” as she said the city has some contingency money, still some surplus money, and maybe it can be done using funds the city already has.

“But people need to know that even if we don’t need to raise that money, there’s an opportunity cost for the money. It’s money we’re spending on this instead of something else.”

She said this is the biggest problem people are talking about right now, and there’s need that community support stays consistent.

Oschrin noted what was particularly helpful was the timeline of all the work over the last two years toward this initiative. She said they get a lot of emails asserting the city’s not doing anything when indeed it is with a lot of groundwork that has to be laid toward accomplishing initiatives.

At this time, she believes everything presented by the City Manager, and she cautions against the attitude that the solution cannot be implemented in certain neighborhoods. And she also points out while the onus right now is on the Cherry Avenue site the Salvation Army is offering, “That site is not big enough to address all the needs.”

“So we still need other sites in other places,” which she said spaces out solutions across the community.

And, not only does that share the responsibility in different parts of the city, but they can perhaps target what the best match is for those different communities.

“For example, if we have other spaces we develop so we are meeting more need, then maybe we can focus the Cherry Avenue shelter on specifically families. That might be more useful to the community, and the fact is near a park is a feature instead of a bug, which was some of the concern the neighborhood had originally.”

Oschrin’s full interview is below: