LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Louisville Mayor Craig Greenberg and other homeless advocates announced Thursday that Volunteers of America Mid-States has been chosen to lead the ambitious Community Care Campus project.
The project aims to take a half-block in the Smoketown neighborhood - east of I-65 and south of Broadway - and turn it into a walkable, community space offering a variety of resources to people experiencing homelessness.
"We believe in the vision the mayor is casting for all of us," Jennifer Hancock, the CEO of Volunteers of America Mid-States (VOA), said. "And I believe we are about to do something that is truly remarkable together. VOA's commitment is being accountable to getting results for our community."
VOA said no plans are confirmed until they have a master planning meeting in the next few months, but their first objective is to turn the former Vu Hotel on Floyd Street into an emergency family shelter that will house up to 34 people.
After that, they plan to demolish several of the dilapidated buildings on the lot and turn them into an 80-unit permanent affordable housing development. The organization also discussed turning the former C2 Event Space into its new Louisville headquarters.
"We'd like for it to be as soon as possible," Greenberg said. "VOA is working with a construction company on those plans, and as I mentioned, we're working on all the sources of the funding. So we're hoping we have construction next year."
Hancock said they have already watched a presentation from Miranda Construction. There was no firm date on when the first building will open, just that they hope to start construction in the "second quarter of 2024."
While the mayor said, "We established the priorities for this project by listening to the community," from the beginning, some homeless outreach groups don't feel that's true.
"Putting so much money into one spot, without community conversations around it and understanding the real need, the real capacity...I think that would have been a better approach," said Susan Buchino, the executive director of Community Advocates for Resource Empowerment (CARE).
Buchino oversees operations at the Arthur Street Hotel as part of her role, which is a low-barrier shelter that takes people off the streets and works with them in case management to transition into more permanent housing. She was also the director of Metro Louisville's homeless services division from August 2021 to February 2023.
"This operation is actually solving problems and closing gaps," she said about the Arthur Street Hotel. "And that’s what I’ve wanted to do."
Buchino and her co-director Donny Greene feel the confusion surrounding the Care Campus funding - and which type of organizations were intended to submit bids - stopped a lot of grassroots organizations from getting involved.
"I would have been on board at the time if I thought the city was going to fund everything, which most people believed was going to happen," Greene said.
When the request for proposals was open to operate the site between July and August, the only money tied to the project was $2 million for "general improvements" on the site. That money was in the city's Fiscal Year 2024 budget.
WHAS11 interviewed groups who were surprised by the huge ask from the city, and how much of their own money would have to fund the project.
"This is a big project, there are multiple big buildings," said Di Tran of the New American Business Association in July. "I don't think as an organization of our size, privately and publicly, we can handle this ourselves."
Thirty-four groups downloaded documents on the city's RFP portal but only five, through three individual bids, submitted proposals to run the site. Mayor Greenberg clarified Thursday that VOA was chosen because it put forth a plan on potential funding sources.
"We expected folks who responded to the RFP to provide ideas on where the sources of funding would be," Greenberg said. "We heard some of those ideas from VOA."
The potential money for the project grew exponentially two months after the bidding closed, when Greenberg announced it was a legislative priority to get $22.5 million from the state legislature in the upcoming session.
When asked if VOA's plans were contingent on getting the state money, Greenberg said they would "love to get the $22.5 million from the state legislature...but there are other funding sources...such as opioid abatement money, there's philanthropic money we plan to seek as well. The city will have to continue to invest."
"This is a diversion that has a lot of money attached to it," Greene said. "And I would just like to see something happen with it so that the people who actually need the help - the people who are currently dying out in the cold - have a place to go."
The city held two community meetings about the Care Campus in May before the RFP portal opened. Greenberg said outside of that and the RFP process, the only other community input has come from individually meeting with groups on various other topics.
Greene and Buchino's larger gripe with the Care Campus endeavor is that it's taking a lot of the city's attention away from nonprofits that are already doing the work.
"This city has struggled to put enough money into working on homelessness, and simultaneously building affordable housing," Buchino said. "People don't see the long-term vision and the crisis."
Where is the money going?
FOCUS did a deep dive into all the money that Greenberg's administration has pledged to different causes since he took office, both through press conferences and the city's official budget that runs through next July.
We found $14.4 million directly going to nonprofits that work in either homeless outreach, food insecurity, shelter, rental assistance or case management. The majority of that money is federal. Almost half of it - $7 million - went to the Louisville Urban League and Association of Community Ministries for rental assistance and case management.
Many organizations received between $20,000 and $200,000 in external agency funding. Feed Louisville, which was Greene's organization until a few months ago, got $111,000 in federal HOPWA dollars to help house people with AIDS.
We also found over $46 million dedicated to affordable housing projects, the Louisville Affordable Housing Trust Fund, and infrastructure for affordable housing.
"While that is a good way of addressing homelessness [affordable housing project], and this crisis, it's also futuristic," Buchino said. "Building housing takes time. We have people dying on the streets now. The crisis is immediate."
Greenberg said his administration is able to focus on both the short and long-term issues.
"If we know the ultimate, long-term solution is more permanent affordable housing, then we have to focus a big part of our time on the solution that we know will address that issue," Greenberg said.
Make it easy to keep up-to-date with more stories like this. Download the WHAS11 News app now. For Apple or Android users.
Have a news tip? Email assign@whas11.com, visit our Facebook page or Twitter feed.