NEW HANOVER COUNTY — A three-pronged strategy, mostly focused on increasing current provider capacity to meet the needs of the homeless, has emerged from the City of Wilmington and New Hanover County’s joint work over the summer.
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City council and county commissioners came together Sept. 5 to review a proposed joint homelessness strategy. Staff presented three “opportunities for success” as a result of months of analyzing current offerings and interviewing service providers and unsheltered individuals.
Their goals include:
- Grow capacity of Continuum of Care and support service providers
- Increase capacity of facilities to meet the needs of the unsheltered population
- Supportive regulations, incentives for developers, property management and housing assistance
Both governing bodies largely expressed support for the plan.
“You all have done an outstanding job in attacking this in bringing back the solution that we’re looking for, I can be more pleased with this report in the opportunities for success,” Commissioner Jonathan Barfield said.
City council member Luke Waddell — who has been outspoken against Housing First initiatives and advocated for an anti-camping ordinance earlier this year — called the research thoughtful: “I know it took a decent time, and all of our staffs’ combined, I appreciate what you’ve put together here.”
The strategy comes after months of elected officials grappling with their response to the rising number of homeless individuals in the Cape Fear; there’s an estimated 319 unsheltered individuals, up from 127 in 2018.
The process began in March, when staff provided a less comprehensive plan centered around a 29-member task force — consisting of Good Shepherd, The Healing Place and Eden Village — to develop regional best practices alongside a hired consultant. Both council and commissioners rejected that proposal, perceiving a lack of clear goals and needs.
The adopted strategy identified both current needs and ways to reach its three identified goals.
The working group sorted the community’s needs into three categories: moderate, significant and critical. Those in the latter category include permanent supportive housing units, rapid rehousing options, day centers and improvements to the coordinated entry/HMIS system.
The high demand for permanent supportive housing — a combination of affordable housing and voluntary support services — and rapid rehousing, which is assistance to obtain housing lasting up to 24 months, reflect nonprofit feedback gathered during the strategy development process. Out of 25 local agencies surveyed, over half answered an open-ended question assessing their biggest challenge with responses about the lack of affordable housing to connect their clients to.
Desired outcomes outlined in the strategy include the creation of new units by building “creative and innovative partnerships”: it was not specified if this would come through new construction, adapting current units or both.
Staff also want to enhance landlord engagement through incentive programs. This could be particularly helpful opening up available units for rapid rehousing by offsetting the risks associated with high-need individuals.
The strategy also takes note of the ability of supportive zoning regulations to promote more affordable housing, as well as offering proactive solutions to code enforcement to keep more people in their homes. The strategy states measures should be taken to increase the zoning areas where supportive housing is allowed.
An attempt to expand opportunities for supportive housing has already been sidelined by the New Hanover County Planning Board due to community concerns about the amendment’s “scope.” It would have allowed for supportive housing — residential group living community or campus with services — in seven zoning districts by-right.
Both the city and county also regularly see community resistance, sometimes even outrage, to new multi-family housing developments, affordable or workforce housing or services geared toward the homeless being proposed near their neighborhoods.
Council member Charlie Rivenbark said during discussion it would take “political will” to implement these developments where needed, despite uproar.
The other prongs of the strategy focus on meeting short-term needs and improving efficiency. The strategy calls for increased capacity in overnight shelter beds; according to the working group’s count, there’s a shortage of 113 shelter beds now.
Even greater is the delta between current population and day shelter services; those are set to increase as well. Individuals would be able to access showers, bathrooms, and meals but also get connected to services.
Commissioner Rob Zapple noted he would like to see individuals be able to obtain IDs and council member Salette Andrews questioned the availability of transportation assistance for individuals, having observed it to be a high barrier for many of the unsheltered.
Not only is the goal to increase day shelter capacity, but staff have suggested one be opened specifically for mental health-focused treatment, with connections to supportive housing. NHC Chief Strategy Officer Jennifer Rigby reported this would be a partnership with Trillium.
To accomplish both short-term and long-term goals, the working group has identified a need to improve the process of connecting people to services, which is where coordinated entry/HMIS comes in.
Coordinated entry is the process by which homeless individuals are assessed on the severity of their needs and placed with the proper service providers, while the HMIS is the data system used to track that process. Both are mandatory for federal funding.
The working group is looking to enhance this system with a redesign of the referral and case management system used by service providers, which could include something like a call center.
An increase in efficiency and services calls for more staff. While each agency is charged with its own staffing needs, the CoC, which manages HMIS and coordinated entry, only has three full-time staff and two part-time employees.
“They are woefully understaffed in order to do the coordinated entry that is desired for this group to have some type of call center or some type of coordination for individuals to call and get the help that they need the first call,” Rigby said.
Council member David Joyner was particularly interested in learning how many staff would be needed to see the strategy through, as well as how they would be implemented. The CoC is overseen by the Cape Fear Council of Governments, made up of 44 municipal and county governments, so New Hanover County and the City of Wilmington would not be able to dictate staffing changes alone.
Joyner didn’t receive a direct answer.
“Let’s think of it as a five-year plan we’re gonna get to to be able to provide the full level of service,” Council of Governments Executive Director Allen Serkin said. “But I don’t think we want to tackle a complete implementation of where we want in the short-term. I think there is an incremental approach that’s going to make better sense for us as an agency and for us, for us as a community, to sort of grow into where we need to be.”
Staff were also unable to put a price tag on the strategy implementation at this point, not favorable to Commissioner Dane Scalise.
“We are here, all of us meeting, talking about spending more money and to my mind, the end goal needs to be clearly defined,” he said. “It is going to, in my estimation, be one of two things: Either we are going to improve the situation, we’re going to reduce the incidence of homelessness in our community, or we are just going to get better at handling homeless services, which may mean expanding the reach of our homeless services. And I would argue that the public probably would prefer the first rather than the latter.”
Rivenbark thought the price to implement the strategy would be high but worth it.
“We’ve got to do something drastic,” he said. “We’ve got to throw money at it. Some problems you just have to throw money at it until you get it right. It’s going to be expensive, but we have to do it.”
Mayor Bill Saffo said he thought the team was on the right track, but wanted to ensure the group was planning to leverage dollars strategically with service providers.
Elected officials instructed staff return cost estimates and an action plan for helping the CoC in the next 90 days.
Reach journalist Brenna Flanagan at brenna@localdailymedia.com.
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