What if it turns out the old jail won’t work as a one-stop shelter for local homeless—and those living on the edge?
What if it’s too expensive?
Or just not feasible?
What’s Plan B?
Those are the questions members of supervisors’ Homeless Strategy Committee are asking; they brainstormed possibilities include everything from renovating and reselling tax sale properties to looking at the Zion Lutheran Church in Cobleskill.
In March, supervisors agreed to spend $28,000 to hire GPI Engineers to figure out how much it would cost to turn the old jail into a shelter with wrap-around services.
GPI plans to be onsite by the 23rd, Blenheim Supervisor Don Airey said Monday; he’ll press GPI for a report by July so they can report to the full Board of Supervisors—and the public—in August.
Until they have the information, said Seward Supervisor Earlin Rosa, who chairs the Homeless Strategy Committee, they’re stuck.
But at the same time, he said, now’s the time to look at options if the jail doesn’t work out--or even as Phase 2 if it does.
Estimates for bringing the old jail back as a jail after it was flooded in 2011 by Hurricane Irene put the cost at $4.7 million, Mr. Airey said.
Requirements for converting it into homeless space would be less, which would bring down the price tag. On the other hand, costs for everything have escalated in the 12 years since.
With nothing off the table when it comes to ideas worth discussing, possibilities floated Monday included:
--Cobleskill’s Zion Lutheran Church.
Is it for sale? Is it viable?
Yes; the sanctuary is a wreck, but the annex is viable.
--Blenheim’s former Presbyterian Church.
No septic, no well, no plumbing, and no nearby services for those who’d be using it.
“That’s the hardest thing,” Mr. Rosa said. “There are really only three possibilities: Schoharie, Middleburgh or Cobleskill.
“There’s plenty of room in Seward, but no transportation. It just keeps pointing us back to this building [the old jail] as the Holy Grail. But we don’t just want to focus on that.
Social Services Commissioner Donna Becker asked about taking properties out of the tax sale and renovating them for families.
That prompted the Joshua Project’s Pat Costello to suggest a plan he’d put together 4-5 years ago:
--Finding ways to put families into homes with their rents equivalent to taxes for the first five years.
After that, and after meeting other requirements, the home would be theirs—though they couldn’t sell it for 10.
--Tiny houses or low-income housing built by developers that fit into their neighborhoods—and that let people take ownership of their communities.
“It’s definitely one-size fits all,” Ms. Becker said.
SCCAP, Rural Preservation, the Mohawk Valley Land Bank and Western Catskills are among the agencies already offering help with home repairs and housing for Plan B and Mr. Costello said it’s critical it’s group effort.
“A lot of homelessness, it’s generational,” he said. “You can’t put people in a house and walk away and expect them to survive. You’ve got to give them something. ‘In five years you’ll own a house.’”
The more they talk, the longer the runway gets, Mr. Rosa said.
“But it’s not just you and I doing this. It’s all of us. I don’t think the lift is as heavy as we think.”
But ever the realist, first Mr. Airey said they need the feasibility report from GPI.
“I’ll start pushing,” he said.
Estimates are that homelessness is costing the county at least $1.5 million a year in services.
A quarter of the population can’t find affordable housing, Ms. Becker said; SCCAP estimates 12-15 percent of residents are “living on the edge.”