By Erika Kengni
Local organizations including Habitat for Humanity and Project Horizon have come together to form a planning group focused on finding solutions to homelessness. The group started after a panel on homelessness last October.
Many organizations are already a part of the Valley Homeless Connection (VHC), which is a similar coalition of community groups that covers the Rockbridge area, as well as Waynesboro, Staunton, Augusta County and Highland County. But this new organization will focus its efforts entirely on the Rockbridge area.
“We can have you in rehab by the end of the day, because that’s what we’ve done, is build that network.”
Because most of VHC’s resources are concentrated in the Staunton, Augusta and Waynesboro region, they do not do much in Rockbridge, said Holly Ostby, the community health improvement program manager at Carilion Clinic, which is a member of the new coalition.
VHC does not have many resources in Rockbridge because local organizations have not applied for funding, said Lydia Campbell of the Valley Homeless Connection.
“If somebody has a need, they have to leave Rockbridge and go to the [Staunton, Augusta, Waynesboro] area,” Ostby said. “This is an effort to try to figure out how to make some more support services available for folks [and to] increase access to those types of services for folks in the Rockbridge area.”
After the October forum, Campbell reached out to community stakeholders and asked them if they were interested in forming a group to address homelessness in the Rockbridge area, Ostby said.
While the group does not have a formal title, organizers have been calling it “Valley Homeless Connection Rockbridge,” according to Buena Vista Police Chief Wayne Handley, a member of the steering committee.
Currently, the project is in its planning stages and will work on identifying the resources that are currently available at its next meeting, Handley said.
The group wants to coordinate already existing resources for those experiencing homelessness in the Rockbridge area, Campbell said. Campbell believes that everyone should have access to safe, stable and affordable housing.
Members began meeting in January and have been drafting a vision and mission statement, said Lindsey Pérez, the director of Rockbridge Area Relief Association, which is a member of the new coalition. The group’s next meeting is April 23.
Senior members of Project Horizon, Valley Homeless Connection, Habitat for Humanity, RARA, Rockbridge Health Center and Carilion Clinic are members of the new group’s steering committee.
The coalition is a “person-centered approached guided by housing first principles” to homelessness, said Handley. This means it tries to tackle homelessness holistically, keeping in mind each individual’s unique circumstances.
Campbell hopes to start a hotline specifically geared towards assisting those experiencing homelessness in Rockbridge.
Root causes and current support resources for homelessness
RARA has programs that can help people with first month’s rent, security deposits and even provide motel vouchers during emergency situations, but these programs often don’t address the root causes of homelessness.
“I want to say 40% of Rockbridge and 55% of Buena Vista households are considered low income, so it’s extremely hard to find affordable housing with that low income,” Pérez said.
It can be hard to find affordable housing in the Rockbridge Area because it is expensive for developers to build houses, Pérez said. The way to recuperate building costs is to charge a certain amount in rent.
“To make housing affordable, they would need to receive some sort of subsidies from the government or other incentives to make it worth their while to build affordable housing,” Pérez said.
There are many root causes of homelessness. The Rockbridge Community Services Board helps people who struggle with substance abuse or mental health issues and they often experience homelessness, said Holly Martin, who works for the RCSB.
After the COVID-19 pandemic, many people realized how easy it was to become homeless, Pérez said. Things like losing a job or getting sick can lead to someone not being able to pay their rent and putting them in a difficult situation.
“People really need to understand that homelessness can happen to any of us,” Campbell said. “[For] the majority of people who are experiencing homelessness, the question is not, ‘What did you do to end up in homelessness?’ The question has to be, ‘What happened?’”
Community organizations often partner with each other and law enforcement. The coalition started after a forum hosted at RARA which was attended by many community stakeholders.
“If somebody has a need, they have to leave Rockbridge.”
The Buena Vista Police Department’s Community Resources Officers try to help people experiencing homelessness connect with resources, Handley said. The department has made connections with local organizations.
“I can […] call three different people right now, if somebody needs to go into rehab,” Handley said. “And we can have you in rehab by the end of the day, because that’s what we’ve done, is build that network.”
Nonprofits build relationships with each other over the years and are able to rely on one another’s resources, Pérez said.
“It’s really important in a community of this size to maintain good relationships among nonprofits, because not everyone can do everything,” said Pérez.