In an ironic twist to the coronavirus situation, issues surrounding it are undermining a project in Mount Airy which could aid persons losing their jobs — and homes — due to the economic lockdown caused by the disease.
This involves plans for an expansion of the Shepherd’s House homeless shelter on Spring Street, to provide more space for an operation that sometimes must turn away people in need because there is simply no place to house them.
“It’s definitely delayed it,” Mike Bowman of the Shepherd’s house governing board said Monday of the effects of COVID-19 on the project.
“I mean, this is absolutely not the right time,” Bowman added.
Ground was broken last October for the construction of a new facility behind the present shelter on Rockford Street, which will allow the organization to supply temporary emergency housing to 48 individuals, compared to 18 at the existing location.
Little did anyone know then that the worldwide pandemic would rear its ugly head just a few months later and deal economic and other setbacks to even the best-laid of plans.
In the case of the Shepherd’s House expansion, COVID-19 has delivered a two-pronged blow. Officials had planned to launch a capital (fundraising) campaign in March or April to generate public donations of $700,000 for the project with a total price tag of around $2 million.
That timetable also called for the construction to begin during the late spring or summer.
Neither step is a viable option at present, according to Bowman, the former chairman of the Shepherd’s House governing board who now heads its Building Committee.
“Right now is not the time to start asking people for money for sure,” he said.
This has left members of the Shepherd’s House board — who are now meeting via the Zoom video conferencing service — playing the fundraising and expansion plans by ear.
“Every 30 days, we just re-evaluate what’s going on and when would be the right time to start a campaign and start building, and right now we don’t have the answer for that,” Bowman commented.
Although no one can predict how the coronavirus crisis will manifest itself over the next few months, there have been conversations to the effect that its economic implications could pose a need for homeless facilities “more than ever,” he said.
Shepherd’s House officials want to do everything they can to help those who’ve been displaced, Bowman assured.
“But we need to be realistic about what we can do from a money standpoint — we’re trying to be very cautious, very realistic.”
Bowman says the $700,000 cited in regard to the fundraising goal could be less if grants are received. One such grant was announced in February, when the Shepherd’s House expansion project received $500,000 from the State Employees Credit Union Foundation.
“We’ve always felt like we’ve had great community support,” Bowman said of financial and other assistance for the homeless shelter operation, which he believes will continue to be the case.
Yet the presence of the coronavirus makes it difficult to ask people to give to a charitable cause, he said, “if they’re already hurting themselves.”
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Source: https://www.mtairynews.com
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