A series of encampments along the west side of the Rivanna River near Free Bridge is keeping residents, business owners, and city officials treading water, at odds over what to do, as WMRA’s Christine Kueter reports from Charlottesville.
[sound of river, traffic, birds]
Gabe Silver gets why people love the Rivanna.
GABE SILVER: As river people, we understand that people like to hang out around rivers. We love to be down here, and spend as much time as we can down around the river, and a lot of our customers and a lot of the general public and citizens of Charlottesville have been finding their way to the riverfront in the 10 years we’ve been operating. So, it’s not surprising to us that people might want to pitch their tent down here, who are looking for a place to stay.
Silver and his wife, Sonya, own Rivanna River Company, which offers paddle sports, camps, and concerts from the grassy expanse of river frontage they rent from the city of Charlottesville. Over the last year, a growing number of homeless residents have pitched tents along the river’s western edge, an encampment that lies within shouting distance of the Silvers’ jumble of Adirondack chairs, saunas, outdoor stage, and fire pits.
The tent city lies on the river’s western flank. The Rivanna’s eastern side marks the Albemarle County line, where, unlike in Charlottesville, overnight camping is prohibited.
GABE SILVER: We really don’t feel any animosity toward these folks, and have gotten to know a lot of them, and, yet, from a policy perspective, treating the floodway of a major river as a solution for a place for people to live, and one that people want to use recreationally, too, in ways that don’t overlap with camping, don’t work with camping, it just doesn’t seem like a solution that’s going to last and be sustainable and be healthy for everybody involved.
There are between 250 and 300 people experiencing homelessness in the city of Charlottesville and its five surrounding counties (Albemarle, Fluvanna, Greene, Louisa, Nelson), according to the Blue Ridge Area Coalition for the Homeless. Along the Rivanna, a stone’s throw from Free Bridge and the Silvers’ business, about 40 tents dot the floodplain on either side of the Rivanna Trail, a 20-mile paved recreational path that rings the city and laps alongside the river for several miles between the Woolen Mills and Locust Grove neighborhoods.
Tensions around the encampment—which is not new—have, lately, been swelling.
Last August, responding to complaints about debris, water quality, and safety, Charlottesville’s police chief proposed an ordinance to ban sleeping, camping, and storing belongings on public land. After city residents called the ordinance "draconian," "inhumane," and “cruel,” the idea was tabled. Charlottesville has since ramped up its efforts to serve the growing population of unhoused residents, including purchasing a former office building it hopes to fashion into a 100-person shelter and creating more affordable housing, according to Charlottesville assistant city manager Steve King.
STEVE KING: We do recognize our community is eager for solutions. Our priority is to provide a space before we pursue other approaches and remedies, that’s why we’re fully invested in bringing this low-barrier shelter to fruition.
Some advocates say even those investments may not be enough.
SHAYLA WASHINGTON: You know, the big thing for me is, will the folks who are currently residing at the Free Bridge encampments actually come to a shelter when we create it?
Shayla Washington is executive director of the Blue Ridge Area Coalition for the Homeless.
SHAYLA WASHINGTON: Maybe because they can’t climb a bunk bed, or maybe some of them have pets, or they're with a partner who’s of a different gender. There’s a number of reasons people don’t go to the shelters. My concern is that the new low-barrier shelter will still be congregant, in some way, and so it still might deter people from wanting to go in the first place. I want to make sure we have a shelter that can truly meet the needs of everybody, which is impossible, but I’d like to get as close to that as possible.
Frustrated at the impasse, some residents are rolling up their sleeves.
Iesha Mallory is a lifelong resident of Charlottesville who lives five minutes from the Rivanna encampment. She brings food and supplies to people there most weeks with her 13-year-old daughter, Naomi, in tow. Struck by online comments deriding Charlottesville's efforts to help its unhoused, Mallory is raising funds for an April 25 community day that will offer free food, haircuts, and a way for both housed and unhoused residents to linger together along the river.
IESHA MALLORY: I’m a big family reunion girl. I would like it to feel that way. I want them to feel supported, not only the homeless, but our community as a whole. I want our community to understand the people that are in that encampment, and their stories, not just what they look like, and what that area looks like. I want to change people's minds. I want them to feel like they are a person because they haven’t felt like they have been a person for a long time.
In late March, Charlottesville officials installed a sharps container at Free Bridge, and say they’ll soon place portable toilets and dumpsters for those camping along the Rivanna—a step in the right direction for business owner Gabe Silver but one that only dips a toe into what he sees as a deep well of need.
GABE SILVER: Asking communities to deal with some of the problems of the world and the full spectrum of humanity . . . I think Charlottesville’s here for that, you know, and we’re here for that, but it’s a big ask, it feels overwhelming, and like the benefits aren’t accruing to the people you want to see benefit.
