At least 100 people showed up to the event — so many that organizers had to pull out extra chairs and some still stood at the back of the room.
The State of Homelessness forum was led by two churches focused on the most vulnerable: Vigilant Hope and Hope Recovery. Both organizations preach outdoors, and they are working together to share a Christian message of fighting poverty in the community.
The event started off with data, courtesy of Good Shepherd Center's Liz Carbone. She said that despite the recent housing crisis, homelessness is actually in decline in the Cape Fear region. In 2010, nearly 700 unhoused were counted by the region's continuum of care, compared to less than 400 last year.
"I think this is encouraging because it shows us that the efforts that we're working on every day at Good Shepherd, and the other wonderful agencies are here in this room, that they are working," she said. "We just need more resources, more funding, and more community support behind those programs and services."
One panelist, Lawrence Palmer, is a formerly homeless man who now does maintenance work. He said criminalizing homelessness is not right.
"It's hard enough being homeless, without having to worry about going to jail, or laying your head down on a bench just to try and catch some sleep," he said. "It is ridiculous.”
New Hanover County Commissioner Jonathan Barfield sat on the panel as well. He received a major round of applause as the sole vote opposing a recent county ordinance banning the unhoused from sleeping on county property. The moderator asked him why he voted no, and he said he didn’t want to criminalize being homeless.
"It just did not make good common sense," he said. "And my comment was, until you solve the root of the problem, it will always persist. And the root is chronic homelessness. Just because you move people from one block to another doesn't solve the problem, you just move it further and further out.”
The event also focused on recent challenges for Wilmington’s unhoused residents: the county ordinance, the coming closure of the Salvation Army shelter downtown, and rising rental costs. The shelter's closure will mean several years with 50 fewer emergency shelter beds in Wilmington, and there's no immediate plan to fill that gap.
There are more events on the horizon: UNCW students have planned a film screening later this month, and a “sleep in” protest is planned for April 7 at the library. That's the main county property targeted by the anti-homeless ordinance, which bans residents from resting there between 10 pm and 7 am. The Cape Fear Housing Coalition is also planning a Housing Affordability in the Cape Fear breakfast for Thursday, March 23.
