LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Friday marks one year since Louisville Mayor Craig Greenberg announced plans for the Community Care Campus in the Smoketown neighborhood. The project is meant to be a "headquarters" of sorts for the city's homeless outreach effort.
Much of the first year was spent choosing a group to run the project. After bids closed on Aug. 11, it took four months to announce Volunteer of America as the project lead.
The day of the announcement, the WHAS11 FOCUS team did a story about how some smaller grassroots organizations felt shut-out of the process because the project was too large, and the city funding was unclear.
As we cross into year two, construction is still months away from starting.
"I think a year later, we hoped for more progress; we hoped for more of a visual," Shameka Parrish-Wright said. Parrish-Wright is the District 3 Metro Councilmember and also the director of VOCAL-KY, an outreach organization that recently relocated its headquarters just up the street from the Care Campus.
Volunteers of America has not had its master site planning meeting yet, but the organization has discussed turning the old Vu Hotel into a 34-person family shelter, and also building an 80-unit affordable housing project.
VOA was unable to make anyone available for an interview with multiple days notice. The organization did send a statement over email.
"Two weeks ago, Volunteers of America held its first community meeting with Smoketown neighborhood businesses and organizations, law enforcement, and other stakeholders to discuss plans for the Community Care Campus and receive feedback as we move forward with the planning process. Our next step will be working with Miranda Construction, whom we’ve utilized for past projects, to develop a master site plan, a process that will take a few months to complete. Once that plan is finalized, we will continue with the next phase of the development of the campus and can provide a more detailed update."
Parrish-Wright was at that stakeholder meeting on Jan. 9.
"They talked about different sources of funding...they talked about getting more partners there and getting more people to come in to work different parts of it," she said. "They talked about giving more communication so we can let the community know what's happening."
Skillz 4 Life, a childcare wellness center just up Brook Street from the CCC site, also wants to see the area change. The look after many kids who are homeless.
"For the address portion, some of them (parents) put 'under the bridge' as the address," Jason Harris, the vice president, said. "And that's quite sad. So we do what we can to help them with tuition and things of that nature. And we try to point them in the right direction for housing."
Skillz 4 Life looks after kids of all ages, from infants to teens, and does music classes, teaches gardening and does tuition-based homeschooling. They look after 125 kids, many of which are in extreme poverty.
Harris said he was not invited to the Smoketown meeting on Jan. 9 about the CCC project and would have wanted to go, but VOA said the organization actually was invited. In any case, Harris says the area needs help immediately.
"I've spent time in Skid Row in Los Angeles, and I'm starting to see the same vibe in this area," Harris said. "So, if we can do something now before it gets to that, I think that'd be perfect."
Greenberg's office sent the the following statement about the project timeline:
"We are encouraged by the progress and momentum of establishing the new Community Care Campus, and we expect the work to ramp up now that Volunteers of America is leading the project. Access to safe shelter, especially for families and children, is the first step towards stability for people experiencing homelessness and we are eager to see the dedicated team at VOA move into this space and provide safe shelter for dozens of families in need."
There are homeless outreach projects separate from the Community Care Campus going on at the intersection of Brook and College Street.
Re:Center Ministries is going into the Unity Church domed building, and Miranda Construction is outfitting a "bridge shelter" for people to transition into more permanent housing. The city owns the bridge shelter property and plans to open a request for proposal some time later this year.
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