PUBLIC SERVICE AND ENGAGEMENT

University partners with town for new homeless shelter

Property next to the United Church of Chapel Hill off Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard has been identified as the site for a new homeless shelter.

Univeristy officials, in a joint news conference with the town of Chapel Hill, announced that the University is in the process of buying more than 13 acres from Duke Energy, including the 1.5 acres that will become the site for the shelter. The University intends to lease the 1.5-acre site to the town and the town will  make the site available to the Inter-Faith Council for Social Service (IFC), the local organization that will build and operate a new homeless shelter.

Chancellor James Moeser praised the solutions-oriented connectivity of town, campus and religious leaders and the greater community.

“This community has always taken care of those in need,” Moeser said. “Today’s announcement continues that tradition. Carolina students, faculty and staff have long been among those volunteering with the Inter-Faith Council. Providing the IFC the land where it can realize its expansion plans exemplifies what we hold dear as partners in the future of Orange County.”

Chapel Hill Mayor Kevin Foy said the town has a long history of caring about the homeless and supporting the IFC. “This in-kind contribution has been a public-private partnership that enables the IFC to help countless numbers of homeless people to get back on their feet,” he said.

The IFC serves the community’s homeless population by manaing Community House, a community kitchen and 30-bed men’s residential facility. The shelter is currently housed at the Old Municipal Building at 100 W. Rosemary St., which has been leased from the town since 1985. Services for homeless women and children are provided at IFC’s HomeStart facility on Homestead Road.

Chris Moran, IFC executive director, said the goal is to have the new men’s residential facility operational by 2011.

As envisioned, the new facility would be rehabilitative in nature, offering emergency shelter and longer-term housing opportunities so homeless men can gain the skills they will need to become independent and move into homes of their own.

After IFC’s founding by a group of local church women in 1963, much of the work of the agency has been done by community volunteers, including town employees, University students, faculty and staff, and members of the community’s congregations.