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City Moves Forward With Homeless Shelter Plans

City officials are working with the state and county to finalize funding for emergency “Code Blue” shelters in Jamestown. Pictured, from left, are City Council President Anthony Dolce, R-Ward II, Mayor Eddie Sundquist and Zach Altschuler, executive assistant to the mayor. P-J photo by Timothy Frudd

The city is moving forward with its emergency homeless shelter plans to address the increased need for “Code Blue” sheltering in Jamestown this year.

Mayor Eddie Sundquist told The Post-Journal the city has been working directly with the county as it finalizes a homeless shelter funding plan to submit to the state. Sundquist said the city has also submitted a finalized funding plan to the federal government in order to secure funding from the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

While the city waits for the necessary funding to operate emergency homeless shelters during the winter, Sundquist said an emergency shelter has been opened on a “volunteer basis” at Joy Fellowship Church, 515 E. Seventh St.

“The reason for that is a couple of weeks ago I received a call from our police chief and there was no location in Chautauqua County accepting individuals under a ‘code blue’ emergency,” Sundquist said. “We had asked Joy Fellowship to open up on an emergency basis, because we were unable to find any accommodations for individuals.”

Sundquist explained the Joy Fellowship emergency shelter is only available during “Code Blue” situations when the temperature falls below 32 degrees. Any night the temperature is under 32 degrees, the state recognizes it as a “Code Blue” situation and has allocated funding to cover the cost of emergency sheltering.

Joy Fellowship Church currently has between 7-10 beds as part of its emergency shelter for the city.

“We’ve been very thankful for Joy Fellowship to kind of answer our call and open up the emergency shelter while we’ve been securing the final funding necessary for both shelters,” Sundquist said. “The weather has been somewhat nice, so it hasn’t been opened every night, but Joy Fellowship Church has been absolutely wonderful to open it up on a volunteer basis as we finalize a funding source for their shelter.”

In addition to the emergency shelter at Joy Fellowship, Sundquist said the city is still working with the Mental Health Association to develop a larger shelter; however, he acknowledged the Mental Health Association’s shelter has been “a little more complicated” due to the standards and requirements the shelter will require.

The delay in the city’s recent plan to open two emergency shelters has been partially due to the city awaiting both federal and state funding.

“We’re still working on it,” Sundquist said. “The federal funding we should have in hand I would say within a week or two, so that’s not too bad. The state funding is an amendment to the county’s original plan, so we’re unsure how long the state will take to approve the plan, but we’re hoping that will be in short order, given the fact that the weather is starting to get bad.”

Sundquist explained that while he has not looked at the official census for some time, city officials have noticed a recent increase in individuals entering abandoned homes.

“We have seen somewhat of a decrease just from anecdotally with our code enforcement given the cold weather, but we are still seeing a need for sheltering simply because some locations just are not taking people at this time,” he said. “Regardless of the population, there’s not much we can do if locations that are supposed to take individuals are refusing.”

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