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Community Forum Set For Tuesday
Homelessness and housing insecurity are on the rise in Virginia and nationwide in the wake of the economic upheaval of the pandemic years.
Rural homelessness is often described as a problem hiding in plain sight, and its face in Rockbridge will be the topic of a two-part series of forums, “Homelessness in Rockbridge County: Prediction and Prevention,” starting this month.
The first forum, “Understanding Homelessness in Rockbridge County: Risk Factors, Scope and Resources,” will be Tuesday, Sept. 24, 6 to 7:30 p.m., in the community room of the Rockbridge Area Relief Association (RARA) building on Spotswood Drive. A panel of local experts will discuss the causes of rural homelessness and housing insecurity, what resources are currently available to address them, and what more is needed. The forum is free and open to the public.
“We hope this forum will help all of us to better understand the wide-ranging and largely interrelated conditions that lead to homelessness,” said Anna Crockett, chair of the Rockbridge Racial Equity Coalition. “In turn, this important process of prediction will help us recognize when community members are at risk and what we can do to help.”
The coalition developed and is sponsoring the series, which builds on the 2021 50 Ways Rockbridge forum on homelessness and housing insecurity.
Rural homelessness often looks different from what people picture about urban homelessness, said RARA Executive Director Lindsey Perez, adding, “It frequently takes the form of couch surfing, squatting in abandoned buildings, living in vehicles or living in communal or individual campsites.”
Perez is among the forum panelists, who also include Lori Ashbridge, a certified community health worker with the Rockbridge Area Health Center; Lydia Campbell, who has served as a local probation officer, housing authority staff member, and advocate for homeless people with special needs; Judy Casteele, executive director of Project Horizon; and Chief Wayne Handley of the Buena Vista Police Department.
Crockett said that a guiding theme of the forums, taken from the National Alliance to End Homelessness, is “connecting the right people at the right time to the right resources.”
The second forum, “Collaboration and Coordination: Finding Permanent Solutions,” will be held in spring 2025, with a focus on the importance of developing community partnerships.
Prediction, Crockett added, can be the first line of defense. It entails learning to identify who may be at risk or already is facing housing insecurity. Prevention includes bringing resources of all varieties to the situation “at the front door,” she said, before individuals or households enter shelters or are on the street. Interventions include increasing awareness of what resources are already available, how to navigate these, and addressing gaps in resources.
So many people, Crockett said, are just one emergency away from homelessness. For members of the nation’s essential workforce – as well as the elderly, and disabled community members – income constraints can already be causing difficult decisions every day, with a disproportionate impact on minorities. “These are some of the at-risk members of our community who may be invisible until we learn to see the scope of the problem,” she said.
Homelessness reached record highs across the country as the pandemic was ending and some emergency aid measures expired, increasing by more than 12 percent nationwide from 2022 to 2023, according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
Thousands of people find themselves homeless in Virginia each year –by HUD estimate, an average of about 6,000 on any given day – including families who may have recently lost housing or income as well as chronically homeless individuals. School children suffer educational as well as emotional upheaval when families are forced to move repeatedly, resulting in chronic absenteeism.
A shortage of affordable housing nationwide has been described by experts as a crisis that is fueling the rise in homelessness numbers. High rents, a high number of households living on low wages (the ALICE - Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed population) and waiting lists for a limited number of subsidized housing units have created a crisis in this community as well.
Lexington City Council Vice Mayor Marylin Alexander recalls how in 1968, “some heroic local community leaders organized to develop the Rockbridge Area Housing Corporation” to address housing insecurity issues — specifically, she said, “the problem of overcrowding of generations of family members in homes throughout the community.”
Their work resulted in bringing the 40-unit multifamily affordable housing complex, Mountainview Terrace Apartments, to the city in 1972. Today, she noted, local humanservice agencies continue to encounter additional examples of housing insecurity still hidden from view.
Although the development has housed hundreds of families over the years, Alexander said, “it has only put a dent in the affordable housing needs in the community today. Some applicants have insurmountable challenges, and finding housing is just one of the major hurdles they face. This forum will uncover the realities, the first step in the finding local solutions to a growing local concern.”
For more information, please contact aennchen3@gmail. com.
