cold shelter for the winter. Photo by Amelia Lanier
By Amelia Lanier
When temperatures dip below freezing, homeless residents in the Rockbridge community currently have to leave the county to find a safe place to stay.
The Rockbridge Homeless Connection Coalition wants to change this by creating an emergency cold weather shelter that would be a local option for citizens without stable housing.
The coalition hopes to have a temporary shelter in place by December, according to plans discussed in the organization’s October meeting. Members are looking into the possibility of partnering with local churches and other organizations as they try to determine what spaces can be used – and what additional supplies they will need – for a shelter.
The group used findings from a July 15 “point in time” count, a census used to collect information about homelessness. The count identified 13 unsheltered people living in Lexington, Buena Vista, and Rockbridge County.
Setting up an emergency shelter is a priority for the group, as cold weather is quickly approaching, according to Lindsey Perez, executive director of the Rockbridge Homeless Connection, and the director of the Rockbridge Area Relief Association.
RARA has partnered with hotels in the past to provide emergency shelter in the winter, according to Perez. This has become a less viable option since the Super 8 motel, which RARA had regularly worked with, was torn down to make space for a gas station.
“The group decided to focus on a cold shelter,” Perez said. “It’s mostly because we don’t have many options in Rockbridge.”
Perez said that the organization is also looking at similar facilities in Waynesboro and Staunton to use as a model for a cold shelter in Rockbridge. The Waynesboro Area Refuge Ministry (WARM) is a homeless shelter that rotates between different local churches on a weekly basis.
The coalition plans to work with WARM to set up a model for a cold shelter in Rockbridge, according to Conor Mitts, a member of the coalition and an administrative specialist at Rockbridge County Economic Development.
“We’re going to see exactly how [WARM] came together, and hopefully we can come up with something with them,” Mitts said.
In Lexington, Daniel Montogue, the pastor of the United Methodist Church and a member of the coalition, has advocated for this method.
Montague said he is in the process of speaking to other churches and identifying which organizations are willing to be a part of the shelter.
“We do work closely with the warm shelter that operates in Waynesboro and Staunton during cold weather,” Perez said. “But not everybody wants to leave Rockbridge to go somewhere.”
The coalition is also considering setting up industrial tents if it is unable to find a building.
For years, local nonprofits in Rockbridge County have participated in the Valley Homeless Connection, a regional organization addressing homelessness across Rockbridge, Staunton, Augusta County, Waynesboro, and surrounding areas.
The Rockbridge Homeless coalition is able to focus on challenges that are specific to the Rockbridge community, according to Perez.
These challenges are specific to rural homelessness, according to Perez. Because people are spread throughout a large area instead of being concentrated in different locations, homelessness can be less visible to the broader community.
“It’s not concentrated in one area, so a lot of times people think that it’s not an issue in a place like Rockbridge, when in reality we know that it is,” Perez said.
The coalition has also been able to collect information about homelessness specific to the county. In July, the organization conducted the county’s first census of the area’s homeless population.
The latest count identified 31 people experiencing homelessness in Buena Vista, Lexington, and Rockbridge County, according to the group’s data. Of the people surveyed, 13 were unsheltered, meaning the place they sleep at night is not designed to accommodate a sleeping person. This can include streets, cars, abandoned buildings, or makeshift shelters.
While this was the first such count for Rockbridge, the coalition plans to hold a winter count on Jan 15.
The group’s efforts come as local nonprofits are working to address a shortage of emergency housing options.
The Rockbridge Area Relief Association helps people experiencing homelessness by providing rental assistance and transporting people to shelters outside of the county. In the past, RARA has been able to organize emergency hotel stays for people experiencing homelessness who do not want to leave the county.
Finding hotels willing to participate in a voucher system has become increasingly difficult, according to Perez.
Hotels have been more hesitant to work with RARA since the COVID-19 pandemic, according to Perez. RARA had been able to work with the police to house clients in the Super 8 Motel.
The hotel was demolished in June to make space for a new gas station, limiting RARA’s options to provide emergency housing for people who have nowhere to stay.
RARA can still provide resources to transport people to shelters in other counties, Perez said, but many Rockbridge residents are unwilling to leave the county.
“The hard thing is that even though RARA can connect people with that hotline or complete an application for them, people that we encounter here aren’t interested in doing it because they don’t want to leave Rockbridge,” Perez said.
A local shelter could address this issue by allowing people to receive assistance without traveling outside of the county, she said. As colder weather approaches, the coalition is continuing to explore options to create resources for people with nowhere safe to stay this winter.
Beyond setting up a cold shelter, the coalition is working on creating educational resources, including financial planning for people who are at risk of homelessness and information that helps raise awareness of how homelessness impacts Rockbridge County.
Meridith Caplinger, a member of the coalition and the RARA helpline manager, recommended using the Gates model, a financial planning model designed to provide one-on-one help to people who are at financial risk.
“The person [receiving assistance] needs to be super comfortable in that situation to be vulnerable enough to learn, which is why I think Gates financial planners have been really good,” Caplinger said. “I have seen growth from those clients who’ve done well with that program.”
The coalition is also working to set up a single point of entry to receive resources in Rockbridge, so that people who don’t have a place to sleep will have a clear idea of where they can go to receive help.