Breaking New Ground for the Homeless

Loudoun County's largest homeless service provider is consolidating and upgrading its facilities, bolstering the level of care for the indigent in a growing county that will still lack a permanent shelter for homeless men.

Good Shepherd Alliance will break ground tomorrow on the project, the renovation and expansion of a 7,000-square-foot facility on Ashburn Road that used to house a roofing company, during a ceremony to be attended by Rep. Frank R. Wolf (R-Va.) and other elected officials.

The Center of Hope will house Good Shepherd's administrative offices, a thrift shop and a daytime drop-in center for homeless people seeking a meal, a shower or referrals to social services. It will replace the nonprofit group's office in Leesburg and thrift shop in Sterling and may open as early as January.

The facility represents "a big step forward in assisting those living in need in our community," said Mark Gunderman, vice chairman of Good Shepherd's board of directors. Toll Brothers is providing labor and supplies to help reduce the cost of the renovation, and HomeAid Northern Virginia, a charity that works with the homeless, helped coordinate the effort.

Good Shepherd, a Christian-based organization, has been operating shelters since 1983 and has three in Loudoun, with a total of 16 employees and 36 beds. Two are emergency shelters for families or women and children; the third is a longer-term shelter for pregnant women.

Although it is hard to know how many homeless people live in the 500-square-mile county, there are indications that the number is increasing. A one-day census taken in January found 211 homeless people in Loudoun, compared with 93 who turned up in a 2005 census.

County officials scrambled last winter to find an emergency cold-weather shelter after Good Shepherd announced it would no longer use its Leesburg office for that purpose because it was too small. Officials eventually opened a warming center in Lucketts, which the Salvation Army managed.

The Lucketts facility will reopen next month for the winter, providing shuttle service to and from Leesburg and possibly other locations.

But the county has been without a year-round shelter for men since August 2006, when a shelter run by Good Shepherd in Brambleton was closed. Gunderman said men's shelters are more expensive to operate and require more security.

In the long term, the county is planning to build a men's shelter and emergency shelter in 2009 on county-owned land near Leesburg, said Hope Stonerook, assistant director for the Loudoun County Department of Family Services. In the short term, a former Good Shepherd employee is trying to get one opened as soon as possible.

Janice King, a former director of social services at Good Shepherd, left that job last winter and started Circle of Love, which is seeking funds to build or renovate a large shelter that can accommodate men.

So far, she said, she has had little luck in securing contributions or support

"When people hear about a homeless man, the first thing they say is, 'Why isn't he working?' " King said.

While she searches for the right location and a way to pay for it, she has offered emergency beds in a townhouse she rents in Leesburg and at a second location that she would not disclose. Many of her referrals come from probation officers, county caseworkers and former clients, she said.

The temporary housing is a "Band-Aid effort to get the men off the street," King said. The owner of the townhouse has plans to sell it, so she has not posted signs or pursued a special permit from the town, she said.

On a recent morning, Alan Roberts was sitting down for a breakfast of eggs and bacon in the kitchen of the Leesburg house.

"We're lucky Janice is around," he said. Without the improvised shelter, he said, he probably would be back in jail. After serving 14 months, he was released in August but had nowhere to go, he said. One of the conditions of his parole is that he have an address, a requirement he thought he would be unable to meet until he connected with King. Now he has a job and a place to sleep.