GSO city council postpones funding for downtown homeless center, putting the struggling organization in jeopardy as need grows

This story has been updated. Read more here.

In an effort to serve the growing homeless population in Greensboro, the Interactive Resource Center, previously a day center that has served the community since 2008, began offering their services 24/7 in January thanks to a $297,000 bump in city funding. 

Immediately, the number of people seeking services increased to record numbers; this correlated with increased 911 calls to the area as well.

Located on the eastern outskirts of downtown, the center is one of the only resources for the area’s homeless population, but after complaints from nearby business owners about the center made their way to the ears of city leaders, the city stepped in to demand changes as previously reported by TCB. 

“What we need to see collectively is a plan,” Assistant City Manager Trey Davis told IRC Executive Director Kristina Singleton in a conversation outside the shelter on June 27. Davis told Singleton that the “calls have got to decrease, and the calls from neighboring businesses have got to decrease.” Davis told TCB that the city will be making “action requests” of the IRC in the coming months to “identify a solution” to make the location safer.

On Tuesday evening, the IRC was up for $300,000 in additional funding, which would have been used to continue offering those 24/7 drop-in services. The IRC originally requested more than $588,000 for drop-in services in May as part of a $1.2 million request to fund a variety of services. But on Tuesday, city council chose to delay their vote on the $300,000 in funding. 

The IRC, which is a nonprofit organization with a board of directors, announced via a press release on Wednesday morning that the organization’s board would meet on Thursday to discuss a short-term plan for operations “amid funding uncertainty” from the city. 

In response, concerned advocates have raised their voices in support for the center. An online petition was also started on Wednesday and has garnered nearly 1,300 signatures as of Thursday afternoon.

In response, the city released a statement that explained that in response to “operational concerns,” city council had previously requested that the IRC submit a “plan of action” to address those concerns “prior to awarding any additional funding.” The IRC was asked to “provide the requested plan at other meetings” prior to Tuesday’s meeting but that the “information was not submitted.”

Singleton noted in the IRC’s press release on Wednesday that the organization has agreed to provide the city with a plan by July 23 that includes additional funding required to address trash and safety concerns. City leaders will meet on July 25 for a work session to discuss funding possibilities. 

The city’s decision emerges on the heels of the recent Supreme Court’s ruling that was handed down at the end of June, penalizing those who sleep or camp in public spaces such as sidewalks, streets and city parks.

And as the number of people experiencing homelessness grows nationwide and locally, the city’s only day center is struggling to keep up with demands.

How did we get here?

During Tuesday’s city council meeting, councilmembers verbally sparred with Jim King, IRC board chair, who told the city that if they didn’t get the funding, they may have to close their doors on Monday morning.

After granting millions of dollars to the IRC over the years, city leaders expressed dismay that such an ultimatum was being posed to them. 

For the 2023 fiscal year, the IRC received nearly $1.65 million in contributions — up from the $1.42 million received in 2022 — according to tax records. Most of the revenue comes from government grants. 

The IRC has historically been presented as a low-barrier organization for access to essential services, meaning that requirements for entry are limited or minimal. When the center changed from limited daytime operations to a 24/7 entity, the number of clients they served skyrocketed.

According to data from the IRC, in April 2023, the center served 533 clients. This April, that number jumped up to 979. That trend has continued for the last two months: The IRC saw 633 clients in May 2023 and 839 this May, they served 632 in June 2023 and 804 this June. During the 2023-24 fiscal year, they served 8,520 people. During the prior fiscal year, they served 5,677.

To curb the number of people using the center, Councilmember Marikay Abuzuaiter brought up the possibility of issuing IDs and prioritizing city residents for homeless services, as discussed by city leaders in November.

Councilmember Tammi Thurm quipped on Tuesday that Greensboro has become a “really easy place to be homeless,” and part of that “easiness” is the IRC “not enforcing rules.”

“I don’t see the rules and the enforcement that was once prevalent at the IRC still there,” Thurm said dejectedly, adding that it “doesn’t cost money to enforce the rules.”

“I know that the IRC is overwhelmed, but it also feels like the IRC has given up,” Thurm added, stating that it’s not fair for IRC leadership to say that they’re going to close their doors on Monday if the city doesn’t give them money.

“If that doesn’t feel like we’re being held hostage, when we have tried and tried and tried to work with you all, that’s not fair,” Thurm said.

Right now the IRC is dipping into their own financial reserves to stay afloat, King said. This means that they may need to close to be able to come back stronger in the coming months.

King said that previously, they would spend money on services and then the city would reimburse them. But financial strains have changed things.

“We don’t have the money to do it first any more,” King said.

A quick look at the organization’s tax records shows that it operated in the red during both the 2022 and 2023 fiscal year. A bulk of the IRC’s expenses — $1.05 million in 2023 — is employee salaries. The second highest expense is listed as “program service expenses.”

What are business owners saying?

A bulk of the criticism towards the IRC has been brought by local business owners who own properties around the center.

On July 2, city leaders, staff and police officers met with local business owners Phillip Marsh, Kim Grimsley-Ritchy and her husband Alex Ritchy to discuss the situation at the IRC and how it is affecting their businesses. Leaders included Councilmembers Hugh Holston and Sharon Hightower, as well as city Chief of Staff April Albritton.

One of Marsh’s biggest concerns is the treeline on his property across from the IRC, where he says that people trespass and leave trash, and he alleges that it’s becoming a space for people to commit crimes. 

While it’s not clear where exactly crimes are being committed, there has been a significant increase in calls for service at the center since the IRC went from being a day center to a 24/7 operation. 

Between Jan. 1, 2023 and Jan. 16 this year, there were 590 events that required emergency services or police presence at the IRC. But between Jan. 17 — the day the IRC went 24/7 — and May 22 of this year, 642 events occurred.

And Marsh blames the city. 

“If the IRC wasn’t there and their clients weren’t in the community that they attract here with the money that they get from the city to provide the services, then that wouldn’t be an issue,” Marsh said. 

Some business owners feel they should be financially compensated since the city is funding an organization that hosts people who are destroying their property. Marsh has suggested that the city give the business owners grants to help them with property destruction, similar to what the city did in 2020 during the George Floyd protests when they chipped in toward the $400,000 raised to help more than 70 damaged businesses get back on their feet.

“There’s unintended consequences of doing things,” Marsh said, and the city is “drawing all the homeless people in America to the IRC.”

Marsh said that the issues that stem from the IRC are affecting the surrounding Black community. The population of the 27401 zip code, where the IRC is located, is more than 73 percent Black and has a large number of young adults. Bennett College and NC A&T State University, which are historically Black colleges, are around a mile away from the IRC. However, data also shows that Black people are disproportionately represented as part of the homeless population. While Black people only make up 13 percent of the US population, they comprise 37 percent of all people experiencing homelessness, according to data collected by the US Department of Housing and Urban Development. In NC, the disparities are even worse. According to the NC Housing Coalition, Black people make up 13 percent of the state’s population but represent more than half — 52 percent — of North Carolina’s homeless population.  

While the conversation had been scheduled so business owners could have a frank conversation with city staff and police, IRC leadership had not been invited to the meeting.

On July 9, Marsh, real estate developer Andy Zimmerman, dentist Dr. Sharon Long-Stokes and Grimsley-Ritchy laid out their experiences on the dais.

Grimsley-Ritchy told TCB that she is concerned for the IRC’s clients and has been helping them fill out forms and look for housing when the IRC’s staff is overwhelmed. In addition to defacement of her husband Alex Ritchy’s warehouse near the IRC, Grimsley-Ritchy said they have had to deal with piles of trash being left on their property. She and others also have concerns about safety — for IRC residents and themselves.

“We don’t want the IRC to close,” Zimmerman said, “What we want is for the IRC to be a good neighbor.”

Zimmerman added that “ideally the IRC would move to a larger location that could handle the additional services that they’re offering and can handle a lot more people that are coming to the IRC.”

“It is obvious that we are having a bigger issue, socially in Greensboro and all other cities, that we just can’t handle the amount of people that are going through the IRC,” Zimmerman said. 

“We need new and better leadership.” 

What are local advocates saying?

In response to mounting criticism from local business owners, the IRC has recently found support from an unlikely entity, the Working-Class and Houseless Organizing Alliance, or WHOA, a grassroots homeless advocacy group. The group has been deeply critical of the IRC in the past, with social media posts alleging that the organization runs on “extorting people’s money.” 

Del Stone, a spokesperson for WHOA, told TCB in an interview that the organization’s criticisms of the IRC in the past have been due to the amount of funding the IRC receives without “really seeing results.” However, their “relationship with [the IRC] now is better than it has been since they’ve expanded their hours and have put more clear efforts to try to really do as much as they possibly can with the resources.” 

Stone pushed back against business owners’ criticism, saying that the city puts “so much investment” into developing businesses and “trying to get investment opportunities.” 

“They pay so much attention to the concerns of business owners and property developers,” Stone said.

Downtown Greensboro, Inc. is headed by City Councilmember Zack Matheny and will receive $4.25 million over the next three years thanks to city council approval. The money comes from Downtown Business Improvement District property taxes and will go toward downtown’s promotion and development.

Stone argues that spending millions on business owners and property developers comes at a cost for residents. So many people are unable to “afford actually living in the city, clearly because of lack of resources.”

According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average hourly wage in the US is $29.76; in Greensboro it’s $24.79. But the minimum hourly wage in North Carolina, last raised in 2008, is $7.25 an hour. Rents keep rising, and the average 1-bedroom apartment in the city costs $1,264 per month. 

In addition to concerns about violence stemming from the IRC, Singleton has received heavy criticism in recent months from many, including from those who utilize the facility. In January, Singleton was charged with larceny for shoplifting from Target, according to multiple news reports. Singleton was accused of stealing motor oil, soda, clothing, phone chargers, gift bags and candy. These thefts occurred while the IRC was running the Doorway Project, a 30-unit Pallet shelter community, and the Safe Parking program, a way for people to sleep safely in their cars overnight at the IRC. One homeless resident, Malique Hough, believes Singleton was stealing in order to provide items for homeless people.

Still, Stone believes that the accusations against Singleton “aren’t really particularly relevant for their operations.”

“I think those are being leveraged as a convenient hotshot from different business owners to try to discredit the IRC,” Stone added. Stone feels that it’s “really frustrating” to see so many perspectives being elevated at city council meetings about how to “basically just disappear a problem instead of solve it.” 

And moving the IRC out of downtown would do exactly that: Push the “problem somewhere else instead of actually addressing those problems,” Stone said.

How are unhoused residents reacting?

Two unhoused residents, Thomas, who spoke to TCB in June, and Randy, told TCB in July that they are concerned about how the IRC is being run.

“They don’t do nothing to help nobody; the money is going in their motherfucking pockets,”

Randy said. While sitting outside the IRC, Randy and Thomas explained that members of the IRC’s community have to seek solace in the shade every day from 3-6:30 p.m. while they wait for it to be cleaned. And frankly, that’s doing harm to their community.

“That’s one of the hottest periods of the day,” Thomas said.

Another resident, who preferred to remain anonymous, leaned in and said, “I’ve been here for four months. I’m legally blind… and they ain’t helping me with shit. They don’t care.”

“They get all this money and don’t have nothing to feed us,” the anonymous resident said, who noted that food donated to the homeless sometimes isn’t nutritious, and in some cases, damaging to their health.

“I’m a Type 1 diabetic with kidney disease,” the anonymous resident said. “I’m legally blind from it and they’re still feeding me sugar.”

As a new 24/7 facility, the IRC is giving people a place to sleep at night, Randy and Thomas said. But even as they rest on the floor at the IRC at night, some residents say they aren’t allowed to sit on the ground inside during the day due to it being a fire hazard, according to staff. But, they wondered aloud, why it isn’t a fire hazard at night?

One of the main growing pains the center has grappled with in the last few months is its transition from a day center into a 24/7 entity that allows people to sleep there overnight. While Marsh has stated multiple times that he believes the IRC has got to go, Grimsley-Ritchy doesn’t want it to move. One thing they both agree on is that the problem is “at the top,” Grimsley-Ritchy said. It’s supposed to be a resource center, but it’s becoming a shelter, she said. And homeless residents agree.

“Now that they opened the 24-hour shelter, it’s been hard,” resident Malique Hough told TCB. “[I]t’s not a shelter, it’s supposed to be just a drop-in.” 

The IRC is one of a few resources for homeless people in the city. Others include the Weaver House and the Pathways Center run by the Greensboro Urban Ministry, the Servant Center for veterans, the Salvation Army’s shelter, Mary’s House for women and Youth Focus for homeless youth.

Hough doesn’t want the IRC to move, but hopes that it will expand so that residents can be close to downtown services such as the bus station and easy access to food.

But others said they wouldn’t mind if the IRC moved to a different part of town.

“They need to,” Randy said.

“As long as it’s better, I wouldn’t care,” said Thomas.

And something needs to change from within, they said.

“It doesn’t matter where you move it to. If you don’t run it better, it’s gonna be the same shit,” Thomas said.

Randy noted that if they did move the IRC, the current management shouldn’t move with it.

“Because they ain’t running it right,” Thomas quipped.

“They don’t help with resources,” the anonymous resident said. “They make us sign up for a social worker that we don’t even get to see.”

Cities, particularly downtowns, are becoming unwelcoming places for people experiencing homelessness.

In a text to TCB, one anonymous homeless source, said that downtown is becoming more inhospitable. Because homeless people don’t often have a place to store their personal belongings, they have to leave them in public places sometimes. Recently, the source’s personal belongings were confiscated by the city for the second time, they wrote.

That’s because in October 2022, the city put an ordinance in place that allows them to do that.

“It shall be unlawful to throw, drop or deposit, or cause to be thrown, dropped or deposited on any street, avenue, alley, highway, footway, sidewalk, park, or other public place or space in the City, any object, substance, or waste,” the ordinance states. “Any person who accidentally drops any such object or substance on a street must immediately remove it, or cause it to be removed.”

During Tuesday’s city council meeting, Luis Medina, an organizer with WHOA, shared that he’s run into old roommates and coworkers living on the street.

“I have seen y’all do nothing, provide no shelters, no funding, to developing successful affordable housing to alleviate this struggle, period,” Medina said. “In fact, I have seen y’all do worse than nothing by putting more strict conditions on the houseless, forcing the IRC to have to take on the brute weight of this epidemic.”

The city “should be building shelters,” Medina said, and that they know “damn well the IRC is not a shelter, it is a resource center dedicated to networking people to resources.”

“You have provided no resources,” Medina said.

To alleviate the growing number of people experiencing homelessness, some areas of the country have opted to give money directly to people experiencing homelessness. In Denver, around 45 percent of the 800 people who participated in a 10-month study where they were given a monthly stipend found permanent housing.

The project also saved tax dollars, reported the Colorado Sun: “Researchers tallied an estimated $589,214 in savings on public services, including ambulance rides, visits to hospital emergency departments, jail stays and shelter nights.” 

Homeless residents such as Thomas wish more people were aware of the struggles he and so many others in Greensboro are going through.

“Sometimes, you gotta put it in their face,” Thomas said.

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