In Spotsylvania, Unhoused Population Bringing County to Service Table
For years, Spotsylvania County would not pony up to support local organizations serving the unhoused. Now, the county is turning to them, only to learn how complex and challenging the issue can be.
By Adele Uphaus
MANAGING EDITOR AND CORRESPONDENT
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A plan recently announced by the Spotsylvania Sheriff’s Office to clear out several campsites occupied by unhoused individuals and connect the residents with resources is being met with a mix of appreciation and concern by area service providers serving people without permanent housing.
Members of the Sheriff’s Office’s behavioral health and crime prevention units have joined together to create the Homeless Outreach Response Team to both “provide support to [the] homeless population in need, and also to protect our citizens who are being victimized by this population,” according to a presentation shared with the Advance by the Sheriff’s Office.
The presentation was shared with representatives from area organizations that serve the unhoused population at a meeting on February 13. It outlines the Team’s plan, which culminates with “Operation Cleanup” in early April.
“We are trying to address the problem without putting people at risk,” said Katherine Matikonis, a lieutenant with the behavioral health unit, in an interview with the Advance.
From Complaint to Action on Unhoused Population
The Sheriff’s Office received the first of many complaints from private landowners about campsites of unhoused people on their properties in 2024, according to the presentation. In December, the Team began conversations with Micah Ministries and started working to “introduce the relationship between the Sheriff’s Office and Micah” to residents of the campsites.
In January of this year, the Team participated in the annual Point-in-Time count of the area unhoused population and attended two meetings of the George Washington Regional Commission, according to the presentation. The GWRC is the umbrella organization that leads and staffs the Fredericksburg Regional Continuum of Care, the federally mandated local planning body that coordinates housing and services for homeless families and individuals.
During this time, Matikonis said, the Team identified 18 unhoused individuals living in eight campsites around the county.
On February 13, the Team held a meeting that was meant to gather service providers together and enlist their help in connecting residents of these campsites with resources to help them get into housing, prior to April 2, 3, and 4, when the Sheriff’s Office will enforce trespassing charges against them.
“We invited a bunch of people from all the support groups,” Matikonis said of the February 13 meeting. “We might have left some [organizations] off [the invite list], but that’s only because we didn’t know about them at that point. Anybody is welcome to join.”
Following that meeting, the Team notified the residents of the campsites on February 24 and 25 that they will need to vacate the sites by April 1, according to the presentation shared with the Advance.
Matikonis said the Team planned enforcement to happen in April so that residents would have a chance to attend the second annual Community Connections Expo sponsored by Fredericksburg Area Health and Supportive Services on March 18. According to the event website, the event is meant to connect “individuals and families to free community resources and vital health services in the Fredericksburg area.”
According to the presentation, the Sheriff’s Office is seeking limited power of attorney from the landowners to enforce trespassing charges. Matikonis said last week that she believes all landowners have now signed the form granting limited power of attorney.
Matikonis said that all the individuals living in the eight identified campsites “know that they’re to be gone from them” by April 1.
“Some have already gone,” she said. If they’re not gone, they will be arrested, Matikonis said.
She stressed that the team is trying “to do everything we can to help [the unhoused individuals] find the right support,” while also preventing adverse impacts on the landowners and neighboring businesses.
“We’re really just trying to help them the best we can,” Matikonis said.
Good Intentions, A History of Neglect
Area service providers, however, say that while they welcome the attention Spotsylvania is paying to the issue of unsheltered homelessness, the plan as presented is unrealistic.
“I think any plan for displacement without a plan for housing or shelter is only going to kick the issue down the road and be more work for the county and more trauma for people who are experiencing homelessness,” said Sam Shoukas, housing and community health program director for the George Washington Regional Commission.
The main challenge right now, she said, is that all of the Continuum of Care’s housing resources—which are supported by grants from the state of Virginia—are exhausted, and the funding won’t reset until July.
“The other hard part is that Spotsylvania is one of five jurisdictions, and we’re trying to balance the needs of the people out there with the needs of the region,” Shoukas said. “We do not have enough funds for every single person experiencing homelessness, so they would have to be prioritized with everyone else who was homeless in the region.”
In 2021, the Continuum of Care presented a plan to end unsheltered homelessness in the Fredericksburg region by increasing funding for two main housing programs—permanent supportive housing, which combines housing with wraparound support for individuals with disabilities who are experiencing chronic homelessness; and rapid re-housing, which provides short-term rental assistance and services.
The proposal sought a total of about $900,000 over two years from the five jurisdictions together to house all identified unsheltered homeless individuals. However, only Fredericksburg City and Mary Washington Healthcare expressed interest in contributing financially to the initiative.
Shoukas said that since 2021, the CoC has continued to request $10,000 each from Stafford, Spotsylvania, and Fredericksburg, and $5,000 each from Caroline and King George, every year for its programs.
“We have never received anything from Spotsylvania,” she said. “But it is in the county’s proposed budget this year.”
Even if there were sufficient funding to provide housing for the individuals living in the Spotsylvania encampments, it still takes time to understand and figure out how to meet the often-complex needs of everyone, providers say.
“We have at this point been to all of the identified sites, and you have a lot of folks that are mentally ill, or have intellectual disabilities, or are physically, chronically ill in some way,” said Meghann Cotter, executive director of Micah Ministries. “One guy’s benefits got shut off because he lost his ID—he’ll have some five months of back pay once we get him an ID and he was living in a hotel before he ended up in the woods. So it’s not just about making sure people know where to go. It’s active community outreach and case management to help people problem-solve so that they can move out of that situation.”
Joseph Lyttle, executive director of Fredericksburg Area Health and Support Services (FAHASS), said he’s worried that the Spotsylvania team’s emphasis on the upcoming Community Connections Expo sends the wrong message that housing is available there for anyone who shows up.
“We love the fact that people are using it as a resource, but we definitely don’t have a magical pot of money to house people,” he said. “There are some direct services we’re offering, such as free clothing, food, and medical check-ups, but we definitely don’t have free housing.”
Amy Jindra, director of community support services at the Rappahannock Area Community Services Board, echoed the fact that service providers are stretched thin.
“We appreciate the county’s efforts and appreciate that they brought us to the same table,” she said. “I think from our standpoint, the concerns are limited resources, and as service providers, we have limited options as to what we can do.”
Jindra said Spotsylvania’s plan highlights “issues that providers have been delaying with for a long time.”
She said service providers appreciate that the Sheriff’s Office wants to balance its obligation to maintain public safety and enforce the law with a desire to connect people with resources.
“But we need more community effort and support in coming up with more permanent solutions,” she said.
Well-Meaning Response Meets Reality of Homelessness Regionally
Matikonis emphasized that Spotsylvania’s efforts to address its unhoused population are just beginning and will be ongoing. She said the Team continues to learn about what resources are available and is “not trying to step on anybody’s toes.”
She said the county does not have a line-item in its budget for “Operation Clean Up” in April, so it’s seeking the community’s help in dealing with whatever is left behind at the campsites after they are vacated.
In an email to the Advance, Matikonis said the Team is “encouraged and hopeful that this amount of conversation and interest means there is a willingness to provide necessary outreach to this population and get them into appropriate housing where they can be safe.”
Cotter said she’s seen efforts like “Operation Clean Up” go “really, really, really well in some places and really badly in others.”
“The frustration all of us had in that [February 13] meeting is we’re all here, all of us care about the people who are in these sites, and we are under-resourced, which is why we’ve been trying to talk to the region,” she said.
“People living outside are not outside because they’re choosing to be outside,” Cotter continued. “They’re outside because they, too, are under-resourced and there is no alternative. Until we can get to a point where we as a region are willing to talk about the alternative, this is what we’re going to get at the expense of the taxpayers and the people living in that situation.”
Jindra said that come March 31, most of the individuals who were living in the identified Spotsylvania campsites will have moved to new locations.
“Some of them are doing that already,” she said.
But she said the Fredericksburg area has been presented with “an opportunity to see if our community can help pull together resources” to aid the unsheltered homeless population—and really what that means is money.
“It’s going to come down to some dollar contributions to help move people from the streets to housing,” Jindra said.
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