County Plans Early for Homeless Shelter

Loudoun County officials say they are planning early to avoid the last-minute scramble that delayed the opening of an emergency winter shelter for the homeless last year until mid-December.

The county accepted applications through Aug. 2 from groups willing to run a shelter this year, and county officials said they are reviewing proposals from several faith-based nonprofit groups. They said they plan to open a facility by Nov. 15 to offer homeless people a warm bed and a meal during the coldest months.

"Suffice it to say, we're going to be ready for the cold weather this year," said Susan-Jane Stack, a spokeswoman for the county's Department of Family Services.

According to a January census by the county, there are 119 homeless people in Loudoun. Dozens of them live in the county's half-dozen year-round shelters operated by Volunteers of America and the Good Shepherd Alliance. Many others, however, live in the woods or on the streets, where they are at risk of hypothermia.

For years, Good Shepherd had let the homeless sleep in its Leesburg office when the temperature dipped to a dangerous level. On those particularly cold nights, the Christian nonprofit group moved desks and chairs to set up cots for those who showed up on its doorstep.

But in September, the organization abruptly announced it no longer would be able to offer that service because of lack of space. That left the county's advocates for the homeless scrambling to find a new emergency shelter before the winter chill set in.

The need was heightened by Good Shepherd also having shut its men's shelter -- the county's only refuge for single men -- earlier in the year.

A coalition of county social workers, charities and churches, known as the Loudoun County Continuum of Care, spent much of the fall looking for an alternate location for the emergency shelter. But by November, it still had not found one. Much of the problem, members said, was that few landlords were willing to accept the homeless.

The group finally settled on the Loudoun Field Center at Glaydin, a Christian school and summer camp in Lucketts that has since been renamed the Freedom Center. The shelter was operated by the Salvation Army. From Dec. 19 through March 29, the homeless were bused to the cluster of cabins in the woods each night and bused back to several locations across the county in the morning.

Activists continued the effort to open a shelter in Leesburg during the winter, and a church emerged as a potential host. But the Leesburg Town Council spent weeks debating the proposal because of safety concerns and neighborhood opposition. In late January, the council approved an ordinance allowing emergency shelters, but advocates feared that the lengthy process to get a shelter approved would result in further delays.

Despite the complications of providing buses for the homeless, the Lucketts center proved to be successful, said Lyle Davidson, a homeless-outreach worker for Loudoun County.

"Folks had a nice place to go," Davidson said. "Nobody died in the middle of the night because of the cold."

County officials would not reveal the number of groups that have applied to run a shelter this winter or name any of them, saying the information is confidential. They said that applicants were not required to propose a site, and that the county is prepared to work with a nonprofit group in finding a location.

The Salvation Army and the Freedom Center have submitted separate proposals to operate the cold-weather shelter this year, officials at both organizations said.

"I've worked with the homeless all my ministry; it's just a part of who I am and who we are as a church," said the Rev. Lyman Eddy, executive director of the Freedom Center. "If we can help, that's what we'd like to do."

The Continuum of Care is committed to ensuring the shelter is ready in time, Davidson said, no matter which group is selected to run it. Cots and other equipment awaiting their winter home are stowed in a storage facility, he said. He and others in the coalition are meeting every other week to ensure the center has food and volunteers.

The county has set aside money to run the shelter, including $25,000 for rent, $15,000 for busing and $50,000 for operations, Stack said.