HAMPTON, Va. — People who live near Buckroe Beach in Hampton are concerned about homelessness.
“They disperse into the neighborhood," said Buckroe Beach resident Kendall Dickerson during a discussion about the issue.
The September 15 community meeting held by and for people who live near Buckroe Beach covered multiple topics, but the most spirited discussion by far was about homelessness.
“At night when families are walking back from the beach or going to Summer Freeze at 7 p.m., you see homeless people leaving the shelter," Kendall told News 3 after the meeting.
Dickerson was one of the residents who attended the meeting. The shelter he’s referring to is the day center near the beach.
“We’ve seen needles on the ground, drug paraphernalia, things like that," said Dickerson.
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The center is run by HELP, Inc., a nonprofit that provides services for the homeless in Hampton and Newport News.
Representatives were at the meeting and tried to address residents’ concerns.
“The things that homelessness touches, I mean it touches so many different sectors of the economy, so many different sectors of the community, that a singular response is not really going to have the affected intent," HELP, Inc. Executive Director Matthew Stern said.
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Moving the day center into a bigger building elsewhere and building a joint shelter to serve both Hampton and Newport News were ideas brought up by residents.
“If we had an easy solution, it would already be done," said Stern.
He also said funding is a big challenge.
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Del. A.C. Cordoza, whose district includes Buckroe Beach, told residents at the meeting the state has funding, but that’s only half the battle.
“The issue we’ve kind of had is location. A lot of people really don’t want a shelter in their backyard," Cordoza explained.
One resident at the meeting said she thinks she found two buildings that could work. When asked if he would consider those, Cordoza said the state doesn't decide where to put a shelter. That's a decision local governments have to make. The state simply provides funding.
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Assistant Hampton City Manager Kwasi Obeng said there’s a lot being done to address homelessness, including a study.
“Newport News had a contract where a homelessness study was done. They actually expressed that there was a systematic problem that we need to address," Obeng said. We can get a shelter but we also have to think ahead to what we’re going to do with the homeless population once we get them into the shelter so that we have plans to actually get them out of it.”
If a location is chosen for a shelter, how long getting it open would take is unknown, but it could take years according to according to Stern if the shelter has to be built from scratch.
