A group working on plans for a low-barrier homeless shelter has given Charlottesville City Council a preliminary cost estimate of $8.6 million to upgrade an office building in the Meadows neighborhood to serve as a place with 80 beds for overnight stays all year round.
“We really wanted to focus on transformational impact at 2000 Holiday Drive,” said Shayla Washington, the executive director of the Blue Ridge Area Coalition for the Homeless. “We want to increase our safety net and improve it, ideally just creating pathways to stability housing.”
In October 2023, Charlottesville City Manager Sam Sanders outlined a homeless intervention strategy that included work to find a low-barrier shelter that would be open year-round. Earlier this year, the city closed on the $6.2 million purchase of the now-vacant office building on Holiday Drive, visible from the U.S. 250 bypass…