Latest news with #GregChildress
Yahoo
a day ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Winston-Salem's housing authority leader to resign effective June 30
Activists and tenants gather near Housing Authority of Winston-Salem headquarters in April to protest conditions in public housing. (Photo: Greg Childress) Kevin Cheshire, the executive director and general counsel of the Housing Authority of Winston-Salem (HAWS), is stepping down, effective June 30, after five years in the role. Cheshire said he will remain with the housing authority in an advisory role to maintain continuity while his replacement is 'brought up to speed' on the workings of the organization. 'This has been in the works for almost two years, at least a year and a half,' Cheshire said. 'My board has known this is the plan and the mayor (Allen Joines) has known this is the plan.' Cheshire said his pending departure is unrelated to the call from some tenants and local housing activists for his resignation over concerns about his management of the city's aging public housing high rises. Tenants have complained that Cheshire is inattentive to their concerns and has failed to maintain safe and sanitary housing at several apartment complexes managed by HAWS. 'I had sort of anticipated that the folks who were being the most vocal demanding my resignation had already gotten wind of the fact that my resignation was imminent, and that they were planning strategically to take credit for something they knew was already coming,' Cheshire said. 'Whether that's the case, I still have no idea. But no, it [calls for his resignation] didn't [play a role] because that decision had already been made.' In an online post, the group Housing Justice Now, a tenant advocacy group that has been critical of Cheshire's leadership, celebrated the departure as a victory. 'He has ignored needed public housing renovations while pouring millions into the HAWS office building, underutilized Section 8 vouchers, bungled a $30 million Choice Neighborhoods grant, pursued retaliatory evictions, and pushed through a meaningless rebrand of the agency,' the group said. 'Tenant organizing at Crystal Towers, Healy Towers, Cleveland Avenue, and across our city made it impossible for Cheshire to push through even more bad policies. Make no mistake, this resignation is an organizing victory! And we demand the next executive director be truly dedicated to low-income housing!' Dan Rose, an activist with Housing Justice Now, said Cheshire has not served Winston-Salem well. 'The fact that Mayor Joines believes he did shows that the problem is not isolated to one public official,' Rose said. 'Residents that are directly affected by the housing crisis should be selecting the housing authority's next leader; not the mayor's out-of-touch board of commissioners.' Andrew Perkins, chairman of the HAWS Board of Commissioners, said the board will be 'genuinely sorry' to see Chesire step down. 'We have known for over a year that he wanted to transition once he completed some very important initiatives for the Housing Authority,' Perkins said. 'Kevin and his team have worked closely with the board and have accomplished everything we asked of them and more.' Perkins said Cheshire and his team have made great progress in creating more affordable housing. He noted the $30 million Choice Neighborhoods Initiative redevelopment grant Cheshire helped to secure from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development – the first to be awarded in North Carolina. Cheshire joined HAWS in 2013 as vice president of real estate development and general counsel. After a national search following the retirement of former executive director Larry Woods, Cheshire was promoted to the position in January 2020. 'I've been here 12 years, and this was never something I intended to do for 20 or 30 years,' Cheshire said. 'There were some very specific tasks that the board and I discussed when I first stepped into the role. I was committed to doing everything in my power to completing those tasks and then stepping aside to allow someone else to build on that foundation.'
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
NC House bills will undercut services to homeless vets
People experiencing homelessness in Raleigh pack to leave an encampment off of Highway 70 near Interstate 40. (Photo: Greg Childress) As a U.S. Navy veteran, I am honored to manage a team that serves other veterans who find themselves without a home in North Carolina. In my role as director of outreach for Veterans Services of The Carolinas (VSC), our team collaborates daily with the faith-based community, mental health and substance use providers, LME/MCOs, law enforcement, housing providers, and others across all 100 counties of North Carolina. That experience has provided us with deep insight into what works and what doesn't. Two pending bills in the North Carolina General Assembly will have a direct impact on our communities, service providers, law enforcement, and those we serve. Both are promoted—as they were in other targeted states —by an interest group out of Austin, Texas, called Cicero Action. Joe Lonsdale, its founder, is a venture capitalist with ties to those in private prison contracting, including technology for the newer field of e-carceration. One bill – House Bill 437 – would criminalize nonprofits like ours by threatening felony charges if drug activity occurs within 100 feet of our facilities — an extreme and unworkable standard that punishes service providers for circumstances beyond their control. The other — House Bill 781 — establishes new requirements on cities and counties to set up state-sanctioned homeless encampments for up to a year without additional funding. Going after nonprofits and supporting unfunded mandates is not on-brand for the state of North Carolina, but neither is disrespecting our faith-based and veteran leaders who the Cicero lobbyists characterize as unserious activists. Representatives for four bishops overseeing 1200 North Carolina Episcopal and United Methodist churches joined VSC and other veterans in sharing concerns about these bills and the impacts they will have at multiple House committee podiums. And yet, the bill passed out of the House and now awaits a round of committee hearings in the Senate. Under the guise of a self-described think tank, the Cicero Institute—in the absence of data—blames the Housing First model for the increase of homelessness. From Texas, it declares there is no lack of affordable housing in North Carolina and glosses over how two out of three of its residents experiencing homelessness in recent years are experiencing it for the first time. Prioritizing housing with wrap-around services—the housing first model—has been the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs approach since 2012. More than 133,000 veterans were housed and provided with supportive services to help them retain housing over the last three years. The practice was first introduced by the George W. Bush Administration and has enjoyed subsequent bipartisan support because of data showing its effectiveness. The average number of returns to homelessness across the state utilizing Housing First is less than 13%. The City of Raleigh estimates it costs $96,000 a year in emergency services, law enforcement and health care for a homeless person living outside. As Raleigh's News & Observer reported recently, putting someone in a home and making services available costs $20,000 — saving taxpayers' $76,000 per person. In contrast, another local government projected the cost of installing just one Greenflow unit to provide the bill's requirement of running water and restrooms at up to $200,000 alone. Will local governments have to add this cost and others in their capital improvement or their regular budgets to meet the state's approval? Will property tax increases be required to move the state-sanctioned encampments around each year? Additionally, legal counsels from local governments have raised concerns about increased liability and incarceration along with decreased local control–as reported by their colleagues in states where the Cicero bills have passed into law. Cicero offers no data to indicate its proposal will do anything to end homelessness—just make it less visible. A month after the Florida encampment law went into effect last year, the first lawsuit was filed, resulting in a hasty sweep of an encampment without a plan for where people would go. Ongoing treatment for substance use and medications for mental illness are interrupted or lost when caseworkers and peer support specialists cannot find those they serve. State-sanctioned, compulsive homeless encampments will drive unsheltered veterans further from the resources needed and further away from sustainable recovery, while putting the onus on our local law enforcement. Especially in the context of yesterday's annual observance of Memorial Day, it makes no sense for our leaders to pass laws that criminalize those who have given up so much for the freedoms we enjoy. Our General Assembly members would serve their communities more effectively by investing in solutions that have been proven to work and are cost effective.
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
NC House bills will undercut services to homeless vets
People experiencing homelessness in Raleigh pack to leave an encampment off of Highway 70 near Interstate 40. (Photo: Greg Childress) As a U.S. Navy veteran, I am honored to manage a team that serves other veterans who find themselves without a home in North Carolina. In my role as director of outreach for Veterans Services of The Carolinas (VSC), our team collaborates daily with the faith-based community, mental health and substance use providers, LME/MCOs, law enforcement, housing providers, and others across all 100 counties of North Carolina. That experience has provided us with deep insight into what works and what doesn't. Two pending bills in the North Carolina General Assembly will have a direct impact on our communities, service providers, law enforcement, and those we serve. Both are promoted—as they were in other targeted states —by an interest group out of Austin, Texas, called Cicero Action. Joe Lonsdale, its founder, is a venture capitalist with ties to those in private prison contracting, including technology for the newer field of e-carceration. One bill – House Bill 437 – would criminalize nonprofits like ours by threatening felony charges if drug activity occurs within 100 feet of our facilities — an extreme and unworkable standard that punishes service providers for circumstances beyond their control. The other — House Bill 781 — establishes new requirements on cities and counties to set up state-sanctioned homeless encampments for up to a year without additional funding. Going after nonprofits and supporting unfunded mandates is not on-brand for the state of North Carolina, but neither is disrespecting our faith-based and veteran leaders who the Cicero lobbyists characterize as unserious activists. Representatives for four bishops overseeing 1200 North Carolina Episcopal and United Methodist churches joined VSC and other veterans in sharing concerns about these bills and the impacts they will have at multiple House committee podiums. And yet, the bill passed out of the House and now awaits a round of committee hearings in the Senate. Under the guise of a self-described think tank, the Cicero Institute—in the absence of data—blames the Housing First model for the increase of homelessness. From Texas, it declares there is no lack of affordable housing in North Carolina and glosses over how two out of three of its residents experiencing homelessness in recent years are experiencing it for the first time. Prioritizing housing with wrap-around services—the housing first model—has been the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs approach since 2012. More than 133,000 veterans were housed and provided with supportive services to help them retain housing over the last three years. The practice was first introduced by the George W. Bush Administration and has enjoyed subsequent bipartisan support because of data showing its effectiveness. The average number of returns to homelessness across the state utilizing Housing First is less than 13%. The City of Raleigh estimates it costs $96,000 a year in emergency services, law enforcement and health care for a homeless person living outside. As Raleigh's News & Observer reported recently, putting someone in a home and making services available costs $20,000 — saving taxpayers' $76,000 per person. In contrast, another local government projected the cost of installing just one Greenflow unit to provide the bill's requirement of running water and restrooms at up to $200,000 alone. Will local governments have to add this cost and others in their capital improvement or their regular budgets to meet the state's approval? Will property tax increases be required to move the state-sanctioned encampments around each year? Additionally, legal counsels from local governments have raised concerns about increased liability and incarceration along with decreased local control–as reported by their colleagues in states where the Cicero bills have passed into law. Cicero offers no data to indicate its proposal will do anything to end homelessness—just make it less visible. A month after the Florida encampment law went into effect last year, the first lawsuit was filed, resulting in a hasty sweep of an encampment without a plan for where people would go. Ongoing treatment for substance use and medications for mental illness are interrupted or lost when caseworkers and peer support specialists cannot find those they serve. State-sanctioned, compulsive homeless encampments will drive unsheltered veterans further from the resources needed and further away from sustainable recovery, while putting the onus on our local law enforcement. Especially in the context of yesterday's annual observance of Memorial Day, it makes no sense for our leaders to pass laws that criminalize those who have given up so much for the freedoms we enjoy. Our General Assembly members would serve their communities more effectively by investing in solutions that have been proven to work and are cost effective.
Yahoo
09-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
NC House approves camping ban bill despite concerns about costs, criminalizing homelessness
People experiencing homelessness were forced to move from an encampment off of U.S. 70 near Garner. (Photo: Greg Childress) Opponents of a bill that would ban unauthorized camping and sleeping on public property took one last, unsuccessful swing Wednesday to prevent House approval of legislation critics contend will criminalize homelessness. In the end, the House voted 69-42, largely along partisan lines with Republicans voting in favor of sending House Bill 781 to the Senate just ahead of Thursday's crossover deadline, after which only bills that have passed at least one chamber can be considered. HB 781 would allow local governments by 'majority vote' to designate local government-owned property located within its jurisdiction to be used for a 'continuous period of up to one year for public camping or sleeping purposes.' Local governments can renew the one-year period. Rep. Brian Biggs (R-Randolph) pushed back against claims that HB 781 criminalizes homelessness while introducing the bill. 'This bill does not criminalize homelessness,' Biggs insisted. 'It addresses unauthorized public property camping and sleeping without prohibiting homelessness itself.' Biggs has said the HB 781 grew out of conversations with municipal leaders who asked for guidance around handling the state's growing homeless crisis. He said the state can no longer wait to address the problem. Total homelessness across the state jumped 19% to 11,626 in 2024, according to U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development report documenting homelessness in America. That was 1,872 more homeless people than the 9,754 counted in 2023. 'Some people want to kick it down the road two years, five years, but how long are we going to wait until we deal with our homeless population in our own house,' Biggs said. 'We need to deal with it now. We need to give guidance.' Under HB 781, local governments would also be responsible for ensuring safety, maintaining sanitation, policing illegal substance use and alcohol use and coordinating with health departments to provide behavioral health services at designated sites. The HB 781 debate was collegial. Some bill opponents thanked Biggs for taking on a difficult issue that has vexed cities and towns. 'It [HB 781] falls short in a lot of ways, but it took an act of courage to actually put it out there,' said Rep. Laura Budd (D-Mecklenburg). 'Maybe this is a solution we should consider because doing nothing is not an option. The solutions we're currently trying to employ in our communities across the state are either ineffectual or not meeting the needs of those they are seeking to house.' Budd, however, said she could not vote for the bill because it's tantamount to an unfunded mandate that would create financial and strategic hardships for local governments. 'We cannot ask our local governments to foot this bill because when we do that, you know where they get the money, they get it out of the pockets of taxpayers living in their communities and most of those citizens can't afford that either,' Budd said. Rep. Abe Jones (D-Wake) agreed the state should provide local governments with financial assistance if HB 781 is approved. 'I think we're going to have to put our money where our mouths are, otherwise, we would be just as guilty as the feds who do this all time; shove it down the line, beat their chest, act as though they did something and they're sending us no money,' Jones said. Rep. Jordan Lopez (D-Mecklenburg) spoke forcibly against the bill, contending it would criminalize homelessness. 'It's not a misconception that House Bill 781 will require local governments to not only punish those that are unhoused, but in a state where affordable housing remains increasingly harder to find, it's contributing to a rising homeless rate, basically requires local governments to push away or outright hide unhoused people as well,' Lopez said. Rep. Sarah Stevens (R-Surry) reminded colleagues of the U.S. Supreme Court's 2024 ruling in the case of Grants Pass v. Johnson that there is 'no specific right to housing on public property.' The Court ruled that cities can punish unhoused individuals for sleeping outside in public even if they have nowhere else to go. 'It [the Court decision] said there's no constitutional right to living on a public park, a public property, so this does encompasses that and said you don't have the right to live on public property but if a city or county wishes to establish a place for people to live, they need to at least provide sanitation, they need to provide a space and give them some guidelines,' Stevens said. After the Court ruling, Grants Pass designated camps for people experiencing homelessness. City policy restricts camping to specific locations. Stevens argued that HB 781 is not an unfunded mandate because the problem of homelessness already exists. 'This is an attempt to start moving forward and getting the cities and counties to say, 'Yes, this is an issue and we're going to deal with it,'' Stevens said. 'We didn't create the problem on the state level, so it's not up to us to fix it. Each of the cities and counties are going to have to do their own thing.' Rep. Deb Butler (D-New Hanover) questioned a provision in the bill that prohibits selected sites from negatively affecting property values of neighboring properties. 'Well, who's going to determine that?' Butler asked. 'Who's going to do the valuations?' Like other bill opponents, Butler thanked Biggs for taking on a challenging subject but said HB 781 leaves her with more questions than answers. 'You [Biggs] are well intentioned with this bill, but I think homelessness, being unhoused, is a very tough issue and people in that advocacy space have been trying to figure it out,' Butler said. 'Until we can figure it out, and until we commit the dollars and resources to solve some of the underlying challenges, I don't think we're going to get there, and I think this bill is going to impede our progress on tackling homelessness.' Lawmakers' concerns about HB 781 largely mirrored those that have been expressed by advocates for people experiencing homelessness. 'Absent state fiscal support, the NC bill diminishes local autonomy while making cities and counties both fiscally responsible and legally liable for the implementation of state-sanctioned encampment policies,' the NC Coalition to End Homelessness [NCCEH] said in a statement earlier this week. The NCCEH also expressed concern that the bill is being pushed by the Cicero Institute, a conservative think tank, that has led efforts to pass similar legislation in Arizona, Missouri, Tennessee, Iowa, Georgia, Florida, Wisconsin and Kentucky. The institute was founded by tech-industry capitalist Joe Lonsdale, who is critical of the 'housing first' approach to ending homelessness. That model prioritizes providing individuals and families with permanent, affordable housing as the first step in ending their plight. 'While Cicero describes itself as a think tank, its policies promote industries that potentially profit from criminalizing poverty,' said Dr. Latonya Agard, executive director of NCCEH. 'States that adopted Cicero laws find they are funneling more public money into incarceration, so while these bills could lead to the financial enrichment of out-of-state investors of privatized jails and prisons and monitoring technologies, they will worsen conditions for North Carolinians without housing.'
Yahoo
02-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Illogical cruelty: Lawmakers seek to criminalize homelessness
People experiencing homelessness in Raleigh pack to leave an encampment off of Highway 70 near Interstate 40. (Photo: Greg Childress) As anyone who steps outside of a gated community these days is aware, the number of impoverished and homeless people living on the street is, thanks to our unjust and top heavy economy, way up. What's more, providing useful assistance to these people – many of whom struggle with disabilities, mental and physical health challenges and just plain hopelessness — is extremely tough. Here, however, is one thing we do know from the experts who do this heroic work: passing laws to make life on the street even tougher isn't a solution. Unfortunately, that's where the North Carolina legislature is heading with a bill that would force local governments to criminalize camping or sleeping on public property. As a Methodist pastor told lawmakers, quote 'How can we push down folks who are already down? Seems like it's impossible, but this bill has figured it out.' The bottom line: As several advocates told lawmakers, the solution to homelessness lies in a sustained commitment to building a genuine social safety net and ending poverty, not criminalizing people who have no other place to go. For NC Newsline, I'm Rob Schofield.
