31 January 2023
GUILFORD COUNTY, N.C. (WGHP) — There is a growing need for housing as the temperatures drop.
Right now, the Regency Inn and Suites and the Doorway Project are the two main places for the homeless to find temporary housing in Guilford County, but both are full.
Members of the Guilford County Task Force recently met to look at options to get more people off the street and into a warm place.
City leaders are working with organizations to provide 175 permanent housing options.
In the next six months, they hope to expand the options available for family housing.
It will be along the lines of transitional housing
“As it related to white flag operations this winter, we’re averaging 95 individuals per night that are in our white flag shelters,” said Michelle Kennedy, Director of the Greensboro Neighborhood Development Department.
To help house more people who struggle to find housing, city leaders launched the Doorway Project, which is made up of temporary pallet shelters with heat that people can live in temporarily.
“There are 58 individuals currently housed there,” Kennedy said. “I am very happy to report that some of the individuals that were originally housed there the week before Christmas have already transitioned to more permanent housing options…that program is working as we hoped it would.”
The Regency Inn and Suites which serves as a winter emergency location for the homeless is also fully operational.
“It has been at full capacity for a couple of months now with 55 individuals housed there,” Kennedy said.
In addition to that, Greensboro city leaders launched the safe parking program.
Greensboro officers work with case managers to help provide safe legal parking for people sleeping in their vehicles.
That initiative is slowly getting off the ground.
“There is case management on site for early evening hours to assist those folks and try to get them transitioning into different housing options,” Kennedy said. “When there are children in those cars, we do not leave those children there overnight, and we immediately move to a hotel stay option.
Several months ago, city leaders worked out an agreement with a hotel chain that has two available hotels for a fixed rate,
“What we have is basically a monthly rolling payment schedule with them now. For a period of time…we had to use city staff cards to pay for the rooms as we went. Now we have been able to work with the hotel to get a monthly portfolio that comes to us through the hotel. We’re able to pay monthly for the rooms we would need in that scenario, and that has been working out really well,” Kennedy said.