The Catskill Chronicle

Steve White, SCFH program administrator on the 2^nd floor with a set of building plans.

Story and photos by Ted Waddell

SULLIVAN COUNTY – A little shelter from the storm for a few of the county’s homeless single women and moms with kids, that’s all the Sullivan County Federation for the Homeless (SCFH) is asking for.

Architectural plans for the 1st and 2nd floors.

The SCFH recently requested the state to provide $1.75 million in grant funding to create the county’s first homeless shelter.

Not a lot to ask for when the county is now paying motel owners an average of $1,145 a month per room to provide temporary emergency housing. Add a few kids, and the price goes up. Add a couple of rooms because you have a lot of children, and the price goes through the roof. In some documented cases local taxpayers are forking over close to $1,700 bucks a month to landlords who provide a room for a single mother with a couple of kids. Do the math, and that’s almost $24,000 a year for a room without much of a view. If you’re a landlord with ten rooms, that could be more than $200,000 a year, that’s not chump change in anybody’s book.

Take a drive through the parking lot at a couple of these motels, and figure out who owns the new Range Rover, and who’s struggling to put gas in the old clunker, if they even have a set of wheels?

The SCFH is seeking the state money to renovate it’s 13,000 square foot building, the former Jewish Community off Park Avenue, into a 35-bed shelter for homeless single women and their children, including as part of the package a structured program to assist them in transitioning into permanent housing by getting job training and parenting skills.

Upstairs, the bare space would be converted into dorms, family rooms, a recreation area, a small day care, computer lab, space set aside for studying, and a security office.

Building plans for the proposed homeless women’s shelter.

On the first floor, the kitchen hosting the county’s only soup kitchen would be modernized as well as the offices and delivery area, and the infrastructure would be made energy efficient; all to state emergency shelter program specs.

“When I was kid I was here at the Jewish Community Center. I remember the pool more than anything else and upstairs they had dance classes,” recalled Steve White, SCFH program administrator.

Modeled on Orange County’s emergency housing program, which includes a women’s shelter at the former Middletown Psychiatric Center, the proposed Sullivan County program would offer shelter for some of county’s 260-some single women and women with kids.

According to White, that estimate doesn’t include single men and families “that’s a whole different number, it’s pretty staggering actually.”

“It’s a big number, that’s why there’s a waiting list for Section 8 [housing] and that why the motels are full and there’s a waiting list. It’s a very difficult situation.”

A view of part of the 2nd floor that would be converted into dorms.

White said that with the local economy in the tank, “they can’t rent to the general public, there’s no business there…they make more money right now” renting to the homeless through the county’s division of social services.

“They’re not even close to being acceptable,” he said of the condition of a large percentage of the taxpayer-rented rooms.

But, like a slice of bread or a shiny coin, there are two sides to any story, and in the never-ending battle between landlords and tenants, whose responsibility is it to maintain the housing in a livable state?

“The county is stretched so thin, they can’t check every place,” said White, adding, “I know there are people in these motels, which are supposed to be for emergency situations, that have been there two years or more.”

“It’s a problem, so everyone has to start addressing the problem, and everyone has to be accountable.”

White said that while there is some opposition to creating a shelter for down on their luck homeless women and children, as Monticello Mayor Gordon Jenkins has gone on record opposing the location in a residential neighborhood. White expressed his opinion that “it’s not facing the situation that is here now…it’s about cost efficiency and human compassion.”

“When some people hear the word ‘shelter’ they are scared regardless of what you tell them,” said White.

“Sure it would be nice if there was no homelessness and no poverty, but that’s not the case.”

To view more photos from Homeless in the Land of Plenty – Part XII visit the Chronicle on Zenfolio.