The IFC, Town of Chapel Hill and UNC announced the Homestead Road location Monday. The university is acquiring 13 acres from Duke Energy, a small portion of which it will lease to the town for 99 years. The town will set aside the property, next to the United Church of Chapel Hill, for a men's shelter.

The site has a lot of things the IFC had been looking for, said Chris Moran, executive director. Its proximity to the women's shelter, also on Homestead Road, will help the nonprofit share management and services. Being almost across the street from Orange County's Southern Human Services complex will provide easier access to some social services. The town's bus service has proven to be adequate public transportation for the women's shelter, Moran said. And there are several nearby faith communities that have supported the IFC.

"We want as many hands on this program as possible," Moran said.

The new shelter, targeted to open in 2011, will operate differently, Moran said. The IFC, which has run a homeless shelter program since 1985, has mostly offered men a safe place to sleep. Since 1998, it has operated Project Homestart, a transitional housing program for homeless women with and without children that offers planning and assistance as women work toward living independently. The new men's shelter will be similar to this model, with men showing commitment to getting off the streets in order to earn the opportunity to stay at the shelter, Moran said.

This means some will be turned away.

"Frankly, what I am doing now is filling beds," Moran said. "What we're thinking in the other facility is not just filling beds."

He's picturing a shelter that will be open during the day as well in the evening, with medical clinic hours offered for the women and children at nearby Project Homestart as well as the men.

Moran envisions men moving from bedrooms of four beds to two to one as they progress toward independence. It will also be separate from the Community Kitchen that currently serves breakfast, lunch and dinner in the same building as the existing men's shelter at the corner of West Rosemary and North Columbia streets downtown.

"It will be a quieter, more peaceful setting because people won't be coming and going," Moran said.


Future of the community kitchen

The new site does not answer the question of where the Community Kitchen will go. With the help of hundreds of volunteers, the IFC serves 90,000 meals a year out of the Rosemary Street building. The IFC would like to combine the kitchen with the food pantry it operates at 110 W. Main St. in Carrboro in either downtown Chapel Hill or Carrboro.

Moran would like to see a space that could store more food both for meal distribution and for groceries.

He hopes to determine where that combined service would be housed by the end of 2008.

Chapel Hill Mayor Kevin Foy said he agrees that such services should remain downtown.

"Much of the demand is centered downtown because that's where the employment center is, that's where the university and hospital and other large employers are," Foy said.

The town owns the 100 W. Rosemary St. building that the IFC has used since 1990. Foy is adamant that the town is not kicking the IFC out of that building.

"The primary driver is not that the town wants the building back," Foy said. "The primary driver is that it's really not a good facility for a residential facility, and it should be used for something else."

The possibility of using the food pantry location on West Main Street in Carrboro has been floated, but there are unresolved zoning questions about operating a community kitchen from that site.

"That question is out there about whether the building the IFC owns right now is zoned in a way that would allow for the kitchen to be there or not," said Carrboro Mayor Mark Chilton. "And I think it may be the case that different people are of different opinions about that."


Other solutions in the works

The new men's shelter program won't serve all men. It doesn't now, turning away those who are intoxicated or pose a safety threat to others. The introduction of higher standards does not concern Foy.

"In my mind, we're not putting all our eggs in one basket and saying here's the solution," Foy said.

He points to other efforts under way, including Orange County's 10-year plan to end chronic homelessness, a street outreach program to help determine the needs of those living and asking for money on the streets and an effort to educate people not to give money to panhandlers.

In November the Chapel Hill Downtown Partnership launched a program called Real Change from Spare Change that encourages those solicited by panhandlers to donate to outreach workers rather than hand cash directly to those asking for it.

The program has raised $14,000 so far to help fund two part-time outreach workers. The time they work is scheduled to increase in July, said Liz Parham, executive director of the Chapel Hill Downtown Partnership. And a proposed $15,000 in Chapel Hill's budget will help support those additional hours.

Parham said she was reminiscing with a colleague Friday morning about how the discussions from two and three years ago are becoming actions. The men's shelter has a new location, the Orange County Partnership to End Homelessness has hired a coordinator to implement its multi-pronged strategies and downtown businesses have a program to discourage panhandling and fund outreach workers.

"There's a lot more programming that's in place in the last two, three years," Parham said. "It takes a little time to get the plan developed and understand what role everyone is going to play and who's going to work together, but it's a really nice partnership developing."