Temporary winter shelter is only a ‘Band-Aid’ for Charlotte’s homeless, advocates say

For Jessica Johnson, spring means going back to spending her weekends living out of a tent.

Johnson, 31, works full-time at night cleaning a call center in the university area, in addition to spending five hours in the morning cleaning a recreation center in Dilworth.

But last year, as her family kept taking her money, she said, she decided to leave their cramped two-bedroom apartment. She moved into a tent at an encampment near Central Piedmont Community College.

And come December, she spent her weekends at Room in the Inn, a Charlotte initiative that provides temporary winter shelter for the homeless.

“It’s kind of hard, but I’m trying to deal with it day by day,” she said. “Just trying to find a place to stay.”

Johnson is one of a record number of women and children who relied on the program this season, which places individuals and families in churches and other facilities across the city for one night at a time.

But Room in the Inn, which has been run by the Urban Ministry Center for over two decades, only runs from December through March. That has left dozens of homeless people who relied on its services scrambling to find shelter this week, even amid snow and slush on Tuesday.

Advocates point to the program’s four-month limit — and to this year’s statistics — as a sign of how Mecklenburg County’s homelessness safety net is becoming increasingly stretched as Charlotte struggles with an affordable housing crisis.

“It’s a Band-Aid, and sometimes you need a Band-Aid,” said Pat Cotham, an at-large Mecklenburg County commissioner. “But there comes a point where you’ve got to stitch the wound.”

While the number of individuals served by the program — just under 1500 — has remained relatively stable, a three-year high of 71 families sought the program’s services this year, according to Ashley Brown, who manages the program.

The number of single adult females relying on Room in the Inn went up too, from 294 in 2017 to 334 this year.

Johnson said that because of her work schedule — her full-time job is from 3 p.m. to midnight — she could not usually access Room in the Inn or homeless shelters, both of which have strict curfews.

But during the weekends, Johnson said she would wait in line for an hour or two in order to access a quiet place to sleep, as well as a hot meal and a shower. With her two jobs, she’s now trying to save up enough move into a weekly motel.

Brown said that Room in the Inn, while temporary, hopes to do exactly that: provide shelter to people while they save up money to fund a place to stay during the rest of the year.

“It’s a trade-off,” she said. “We have to set hours that means that families can only work one job.”

Each of 106 host sites participates for one night a time, welcoming about a dozen “neighbors,” as the program’s clients are known. Some host as often as once a week, while others do so once a month.

Men, women and children will line outside of the Urban Ministry Center an hour or two before the deadline of 4:30 p.m., when volunteers screen people and assign them to the handful of host sites participating that night.

Brown said she tries to redirect families to the Salvation Army Center of Hope, a more permanent shelter for women and children. Room in the Inn stops providing shelter at 6 a.m., which can be disruptive and complicated for children trying to catch a bus to school, she said.

But when the family shelter became full in the new year, Brown said, Room in the Inn started receiving an influx of families, some of them as large as eight or nine people.

Because it only has so many spots available, Brown said that Room in the Inn on most days had to turn away between 10 and 40 men, who are prioritized last. When possible, coordinators would try to get them a spot at the Men’s Shelter of Charlotte.

But that facility, which has already been laying out 50 mats in its cafeteria to accommodate more people, has had few open spots in recent months. And some other clients have been banned from the men’s shelter entirely due to their past behavior.

Despite the initiative’s limitations, Johnson said that she appreciated the volunteers who run the program.

“They try to help you get places and they talk to you and lift you up,” she said. “Some nights I needed to talk to somebody and they’ll listen to me and give me some good advice.”

This story was originally published April 5, 2019 at 4:01 PM.