The Daily Tar Heel

Issue date: 1/14/08 Section: City

Media Credit: Abby Metty Taz, a homeless man from Chapel Hill, sits on Franklin Street on Wednesday morning. He and his wife, Barbara Simmons (not pictured), share only a few blankets during cold winter nights. Soon Community House on Rosemary Street will be open 24 hours to provide shelter.

CORRECTION: Due to a reporting error, Monday's pg. 3 article "Homeless out in the cold" incorrectly identified the name of a source. Her name is Barbara Sims. The Daily Tar Heel apologizes for the error.

Barbara Simmons and her husband Taz say a prayer before they sit down Thursday to enjoy their meal at the Inter-Faith Council for Social Service Community House.

The meal is the last the two will enjoy before returning to the streets of Chapel Hill for the night, where they'll try to find a place to stay warm amidst the winter elements.

The Community House, a homeless shelter on Rosemary Street, will soon be open 24 hours a day in an effort to help those who spend much of the chilly winter on the streets.

To fund the change, the IFC raised more than $25,000 from private donors, which was matched by a grant from The Stewards Fund, a Raleigh-based charitable foundation.

The move to 24-hour service will impact the lives of everyone involved with the shelter, IFC Executive Director Chris Moran said.

"To me and to those who serve, it means the opportunity to provide more services," he said. "To those who use the shelter, it means being out of the elements, a bathroom, a shower and eventually hopefully participating in the other programs we offer."

Moran said the organization still must find more staff and volunteers before it can stay open 24 hours.

The winter is particularly problematic for the already struggling homeless, said Michael Stoops, acting executive director of the Washington, D.C.-based National Coalition for the Homeless.

"Homelessness is a year-round issue," he said. "But winter makes being homeless harder and life-threatening. And unfortunately, no city shelters all of its homeless population."

There are some shelters in the United States only open during the winter, some only when temperatures fall below 40 degrees and some only when it's freezing, Stoops said.

"Do we do the same for animal shelters?" he asked. "People must realize that you can die of hypothermia even when temperatures are in the 50s if you face other extreme conditions, too."

For a shelter like the Community House, 24-hour services are unusual, Stoops said.

Stoops said it's uncommon for nonprofit private shelters to have the money for daytime resources.

"So they only open at nighttime and kick people out during the day," he said.

Moran said the change would make Chapel Hill a better community by getting the homeless off the streets and giving them more help to reconstruct their lives.

Truc Ma, a UNC sophomore who lives on Franklin Street, also said the new hours will enable the shelter to benefit both those who need help and those who live and work in Chapel Hill.

"The homeless on Franklin sometimes make me sad and sometimes annoyed when they aggressively ask for money, but I think that giving them a place to stay for the night will make everyone feel more comfortable and safer," she said.

The local government is attempting to address the problem with the Orange County Ten Year Plan to End Chronic Homelessness. On Oct. 25, Project Homeless Connect paired more than 100 homeless residents with necessary services at the Hargraves Community Center.

Stoops - who said he thinks that eliminating homelessness requires attacking root causes like affordable housing - said the shelters aren't the solution to the homelessness in Chapel Hill or nationwide.

"A shelter is not a home," Stoops said. "Volunteer works, acts of mercy, acts of compassion can help, but volunteering alone can not solve the issue.

The Community House can hold about 55 men overnight. It turns away more men because it simply doesn't have the room, said Antonio Steele, IFC building manager.

"On a cold night, we turn away 15 to 20 men who legitimately need somewhere to stay," he said.

At Homstead Road's HomeStart shelter, which sleeps 18 women, there wasn't enough room for Barbara Simmons on Thursday night, and she was forced to face the chilly temperatures with her husband on the streets. Thursday, there was a waiting list of 55 residents, she said.

"For warmth, we cuddle close to each other and pray," she said.



Contact the City Editor at citydesk@unc.edu.

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