Pitts: Fayetteville day center for homeless opens. Two stories show promise and challenges

I went to the ribbon-cutting Monday morning for the city’s new Day Resource Center, designed to help homeless people get their bearings.

The 12,800-foot facility is built in the old Rock Shop building, a music club from years ago. It is located on King Street, a block off Eastern Boulevard, aka U.S. 301.

The plain, neat-looking building looks bigger on the inside than on the outside.

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There is an intake area and lobby with a charging station for mobile devices. Spotting that station instantly made me think of another place of refuge for the homeless, the public library, one of my favorite places.

Seeing homeless people plug into library outlets and charging ports is a reminder that those ports are as valuable a commodity to people living on the streets and the sidewalks as they are to those who don't. Maybe more so, considering the inherent risk of living unsheltered.

The Resource Center is impressive. There is a generously sized room where meals are served — on Monday, Manna Church was preparing for the lunch hour. Manna will continue to serve lunch at the center; Fayetteville Area Operation Inasmuch serves breakfast at its site on Hillsboro Street; and the Salvation Army serves dinner at its shelter on Alexander Street.

There are showers, workspaces, a security station and an office where staff from the center’s partner agencies and organizations will meet with clients to provide them with services.

Pearlie Hodges, who attended the ribbon-cutting, operates two nonprofits, Life Matters and My Sister's Keeper. She said both would be interacting with the Resource Center. The organizations provide clinical counseling and transitional housing, respectively.

“I love it,” she said about the center. “I love to see all the planning that went into it. In your mind's eye, you can see it; but then you see it face to face.”

My own first impressions of the center were colored by two people I talked to. They reminded me of what the center can and cannot achieve, or cannot achieve easily. Call it the tale of two families.

At its best, this long-awaited Day Resource Center can only be one piece in what I have noted before is the complex puzzle of homelessness. And that’s fine.

Every piece matters, just like every person matters.

Formerly homeless

In the lobby area, I chatted with Sharman Tober, who is in her 70s and who I can now say, happily, is formerly homeless. She and her adult son, Christopher, and their five dogs moved into a mobile home off Murchison Road in January.

Tober credits Cumberland HealthNET, which is the city’s operating partner for the Resource Center, for helping them find a home. HealthNET staff have managed the Resource Center since a “Passing the Keys” ceremony on Aug. 8.

“It’s all Cumberland HealthNET,” Tober said, specifically praising executive director Shelley Hudson. “I just gave her a big hug.”

Tober, her son and many other homeless people had to relinquish their sleeping spots near the Headquarters Library after the city cleared encampments as part of an initiative last year designed to keep them and others safe and also intended to move them further along the road to housing. A key part of the city's efforts to reduce homelessness is its coordinated entry program — part of the countywide Continuum of Care that comprises multiple partner agencies.

Tober said she and Christopher were put into a hotel for two months until the mobile home had been fixed up. She said she loves the central air in her new home but is starting to be worried about the bill. Also, she says the narrow steps into the home make her concerned she will fall.

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“So I’ve asked somebody to help me build a ramp.”

She and Christopher still go over where they used to sleep out near the library to talk with and check in on other unhoused people with whom they have made friends over the years. A few weeks ago, I noticed at least some of the people in the evenings had taken to camping out under the awnings of the Festival Park Plaza building, around the corner from the library.

Pregnant and homeless

A few feet away from Tober at the ribbon-cutting ceremony, I met a young, unhoused woman who gave just the first name Shyianne. She is pregnant. She told me she was due on Saturday and had an appointment set at Cape Fear Valley Medical Center.

She complimented the people at the Cumberland County Health Department for the prenatal care she had received.

Her husband dozed off and on in the seat next to her. He had just completed two jobs, according to his wife: 4 p.m. to 10 p.m. at Food Lion and 11 p.m. to 7 a.m. at Speedway, a convenience store.

“He’s sweet,” she said, looking at him adoringly. “He’s tired.”

Shyianne had spent the night sleeping in front of the Day Resource Center, along with several other people. It was part of a “Sleep Out” protest organized by Joseph Wheeler, a homeless activist who emailed a fiery press release beforehand that said Cumberland HealthNET should be doing more to get people into houses.

Wheeler said after the ribbon-cutting that more than a dozen people slept in front of the Resource Center for the Sleep Out overnight Sunday. He said Cumberland HealthNET was not educating unhoused people on the programs available to them and was not doing enough to keep people from becoming homeless in the first place.

Shyianne might agree with Wheeler's tough assessment of Cumberland HealthNET. The couple has been without a home for a year, maybe longer, she said. They were hoping to secure a hotel through the coordinated entry program but had been unsuccessful in three attempts, despite hearing that funding was available, she said.

She spoke in a tone I would describe as apologetically critical.

“They told us they didn't have no funding every time we went up there,” she said. “They expect people to move, then where are they supposed to go?”

She said she and her husband had been told they would hear from a housing navigator but had not.

“I ain’t never had nobody come out and look for me and try to find me,” Shyianne said.

She added it was “ridiculous” that people were lying “everywhere” — in front of storefronts and bus stops.

Shyianne did seem to have some optimism for the Day Resource Center.

“Hopefully, maybe they can provide more resources than other places have,” she said.

20 agencies

I think the center is positioned where it can make things happen. I hope.

A news release from the city prior to the ribbon-cutting stated the $6.9 million center was funded by the American Rescue Plan Act and grants from the North Carolina Office of Recovery and Resiliency and State Capital Infrastructure Grants.

The city provides money for three full-time employees at the center, according to Hudson, the center director, in an interview after the ribbon-cutting.

She said the center has at least 20 partner agencies “that are committed to support the needs of the unsheltered at the Day Resource Center.”

She said they are not sure yet how many people will come through daily to seek services.

“Optimistically, we expect to serve on average 40 to 50 individuals per day based on the need.”

I asked her about a claim in Wheeler’s release that HealthNET had placed just one family.

Hudson said since January the nonprofit had put 11 people into six permanent households and had put 13 people temporarily into nine households.

“We were able to accomplish this effort with the support of COVID-19 grant funding that has since expired,” Hudson said.

The COVID-19 grant had funded the only navigator.

Now, Hudson said, “We are looking for community partners to assist with providing services such as housing navigation at the DRC.”

Take some time

On Monday, I spotted Craig Morrison, head of Operation Inasmuch, a longtime, Christian-focused homeless outreach. He was taking it all in. I asked his thoughts.

“One of the challenges is this is not going to happen overnight,” he said. “It's gonna take some time.”

He said everyone should adjust their expectations but work at “bringing this thing along together.”

Myron B. Pitts can be reached at mpitts@fayobserver.com or 910-486-3559. 

This article originally appeared on The Fayetteville Observer: Pitts: Tale of two lives at Fayetteville day center for homeless