Visitors who bring their families to Williamsburg to enjoy the city’s “Grand Illumination” weekends probably don’t think about people who are homeless in the area. Williamsburg’s hotels and restaurants are full of happy tourists who come here to experience the beautiful decorations and wonderful musical performances of the holiday season. But not too far away from where they park their cars, ride the shuttle buses, or walk down the historic streets, people are living in the woods, under the bridges, or crowded into motel rooms. Some are living long-term with friends or relatives; these individuals may also be considered essentially homeless for the purposes of social services agencies. It is difficult to estimate the number of homeless people in the area. Almost by definition, they are hard to find and identify. Estimates range as high as 500 people within 20 miles of Williamsburg.
A Gazette article from a few years ago described the problem this way:
There’s no single path to homelessness and it doesn’t discriminate. It has no single color, age, gender, or disability. It’s families, youths, veterans, and retirees. It’s people who work seasonally in the tourist industry who lost their income in the winter, and it’s single parents who can’t support children on $8 an hour. It’s families living week-to-week in motels because they can’t afford move-in fees, and it’s elderly men camping in tents because their back surgery ended a career dependent on manual labor.
The article in this morning’s paper focuses on the Community of Faith Mission in Williamsburg, which has operated a cold-weather homeless shelter since 2012. It operates during the coldest months of the year. In the past, this has been as many as 18 weeks, although this year it will operate for only 12 weeks. COVID restrictions limited the number of available sites over the past couple of years. This year, 12 churches have agreed to host this shelter for one week at a time.
Every Sunday afternoon, staff and volunteers set up the new week’s site. The next Sunday morning, they’ll break everything down, put the supplies in a trailer, and move to the next place where the whole process begins again. According to the article, it takes 12-20 volunteers every night to run the shelter, and more than 11,000 volunteer hours are logged in the average season. This organization is always on the lookout for more volunteers.
The mission also greatly benefits from donations from the community. A local gym has donated more than 1,500 pairs of underwear to the mission, while other organizations chip in with donated clothing, other items, and money.
The church we used to attend, Williamsburg United Methodist Church, has been a host site for this program for years. Tim and I were involved for several years and came to appreciate the magnitude of the effort involved in creating a welcoming and supportive space for the men, women, and children who need a warm and safe place to sleep during the winter. Volunteers are needed to check in visitors (who have generally been pre-screened by a local social services agency for security reasons), prepare and serve a hot dinner, evening snacks, and a cooked breakfast, stay overnight at the shelter, organize and monitor sleeping and shower arrangements, and just to interact with and talk to people who find themselves in a situation no one wants to be in.
I learned a lot about homelessness when I volunteered for this a few years ago. People who are without homes are in that situation for a variety of reasons. Some are just temporarily without homes and are working with other service agencies to find permanent housing. Some experience homelessness as a more chronic situation, sometimes because of mental illness or physical disability. Some have cars and jobs; one resident a few years ago was very concerned that he would not wake up in time to go to his job, and he was also worried about the security of the tools he had in the trunk of his car. We arranged for a safe place for him to store his tools and we promised him we would wake him up and that he could grab a “bag breakfast” to take with him when he left at 6:00 am the next morning to go to work.
The article doesn’t talk about this, but there is another organization in Williamsburg – House of Mercy – which operates a year-round day shelter as a refuge for homeless people who often have nowhere to go during the day. Every librarian knows that public libraries sometimes serve this purpose. It’s better to have an organization like House of Mercy that provides meals, haircuts, support for job applicants, help to secure permanent housing, and other assistance.
It is shameful that there are people without homes in an affluent community like Williamsburg. The tourist economy of the region requires a large number of seasonal workers in the restaurant and hospitality sector. These jobs often rely on tips or pay minimum wage (which until last year was $7.95 an hour, a rate that was set in 2009) and carry no benefits, guaranteed shifts, or job security. The area's infrastructure also makes life difficult for people with few resources; our public transportation system is almost nonexistent, and there is little affordable housing for people earning so little money. Every effort to improve either of these issues fails in the face of opposition to higher taxes or NIMBY (not in my backyard) attitudes.
It would take another essay and more research than I’m prepared to do this morning to talk about how soaring income inequality in America has created this situation.
HINT: It started with Ronald Reagan and his failed policy of trickle-down supply-side economics. No developed country in the world features the gap between rich and poor that you find in the United States.
Your community also has a problem with homelessness. You may not see it, but that’s the nature of the problem. Look around again and you’ll find organizations that exist to address this problem. Lots of good people are working to make life easier for people who are dealing with homelessness.
Karen, your essay this morning is really a hot button for me. I devoted my entire career to working with health care systems and community organizations to find collaborative solutions to issues of poverty which, of course, includes homelessness. When I arrived in Williamsburg and began to ask questions about how I could bring what I had learned to the Williamsburg community, I was stunned to hear people tell me there were no issues of poverty or homelessness in Williamsburg. Ultimately, I did make connections, but I am grateful people like you are shining a light on this. Your timing is great, too, Karen. It’s the Winter Solstice, a very meaningful day to me in so many ways...a day when we think about darkness and light.....😎