The City of Charlottesville, in collaboration with Virginia Supportive Housing, is working to construct an apartment building on Fourth Street that will have 60 single-room occupancy units. Half of these rooms will be rented out to low-income persons, and the other half will be subsidized for homeless individuals.
Dozens of Charlottesville residents are chronically homeless, but providing at least some of them with subsidized housing should help alleviate this problem, Mayor Dave Norris said.
"Housing that's very affordable, that has support services on site ... [that's] manageable for somebody who is homeless to be able to maintain it ... this is what this [project] is all about," he said.
The city chose to build the apartment complex in part because it was seen as a more long-term solution than the construction of shelters, City Council Member Kristin Szakos said.
"We believe that these types of developments are very successful and a proven way to end homelessness," said Allison Bogdanovic, director of housing development at VSH, an organization that has conducted similar projects in the Richmond and South Hampton Roads areas. "We have been doing this for over 20 years and we have a 90 percent success rate, ensuring that folks do not return to homelessness."
Norris said funding for the project - which could cost up to $7 million - will come from a "combination of sources," including local, federal, state and private money.
To start construction on the project this fall, VSH will need several million dollars in tax credits for low-income housing projects. The city will contribute about $1.6 million to the project, Norris said. VSH will lease the property, but it will still be city property, he added. If funding is received on time, the building could open in fall 2011.
Finding the site for the apartment was particularly challenging, Norris said, but the effort seems to have paid off.
"It's a great location," he said. "It's not in a single-family residential neighborhood but it's close to downtown, to churches, jobs and public transportation, and it was a site that was on the market."
The current project builds upon the city's past attempts to provide housing for the homeless. Charlottesville once had a similar building but had to close it because of a lack of state funding, Council Member Satyendra Huja said.
If this project is successful, though, it could lead to similar efforts in the future.
"As more people are looking for a permanent solution to a homelessness, more communities are adopting this kind of housing," Norris said. "So I expect you'll see more such projects in other cities in the years to come and maybe even more in Charlottesville"
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