The Concord Coalition to End Homelessness will bring its plan for a new cold-weather homeless shelter to the planning board next month.
That means it’s on track to be ready for next winter, Executive Director Ellen Groh said, as long as the coalition can raise the money it needs for construction.
“There’s still 100 pieces to fall into place,” Groh said, “but none of them have fallen out of place yet. … It’s still on the timeline so far.”
Without the coalition’s plan, there might be no low-barrier shelter available for the city’s most vulnerable residents next winter. The last-minute accomodations the city has found the past two years aren’t expected to be available.
The coalition is proposing to build a 1,480-square-foot shelter behind its current 238 N. Main St. building. Plans show that the vast majority of the facility would be a wide-open room with space for 17 bunks. There would also be men’s and women’s bathrooms and a small office.
Because of the proposed shelter’s positioning on the 0.27-acre parcel, as close as 2 feet from the rear property line, it was required to go to the zoning board to ask for variances for its setbacks and parking. All the variances were approved in a unanimous vote in February.
The planning board accepted the coalition’s application as complete last week and scheduled a public hearing for its May 17 meeting, marking the final step in the approvals process.
Groh has said the coalition will have to raise about $500,000 for the project. She has applied for funding through the New Hampshire Housing Finance Authority and the Community Development Finance Authority’s tax credit program.
“I’m hoping to hear by mid-June on the CDFA, and I don’t know about the other one,” Groh said, using an acronym to reference the agency that administers the tax credit program. “We will also be launching a fundraising campaign.”
At the zoning board meeting, a crowd of the coalition’s supporters sat through 2½ hours of hearings before the shelter plan was eventually called and approved. They joined in a celebratory round of applause after the vote.
Groh said as the plans for a new shelter have developed, “We are receiving a lot of interest and a lot of public support.”
If the shelter fits 34 people in 17 bunkbeds, it’ll max out just above the average daily attendance seen at the cold-weather shelters at St. Peter’s Church over the past two years. That church has long been on the market and is expected to sell before next winter.
Groh has said the coalition’s primary goal is to find permanent housing for the city’s homeless residents, but the cold-weather shelter would fill a pressing gap in the safety net for those people who have nowhere to go.
(Nick Reid can be reached at 369-3325, nreid@cmonitor.com or on Twitter at
@NickBReid.)