Todd Walker opened the door to one of the apartments in the newly constructed Judeo-Christian Outreach Center building near 17th Street at the Virginia Beach Oceanfront.
It hasn’t been lived in yet, but soon someone who is currently homeless will call the apartment home.
“You got cookware, a dishwasher, microwave, chair, stove, refrigerator, sink, bed,” Walker said.
A laundry basket of cleaning supplies, dish soap, trash bags, shower curtain hooks and detergent rested on a dresser built into the wall. Light poured in from the window above a bed complete with a pillow, black comforter and white sheets.
“Being in here now is just surreal,” Walker said.
The project has been in the works for 12 years — almost as long as Walker has been executive director of the JCOC. Sometimes, he can’t believe everything came together.
The new complex houses JCOC’s administrative offices and most of its services in one place, including a large dining hall to host nightly community meals, a food pantry and two floors of new affordable housing units.
Hampton Roads has few affordable housing options. One in three households in Virginia Beach are cost-burdened, meaning 30% or more of their income goes to housing costs, according to a 2024 report by Virginia Tech. A lack of affordable housing combined with rising food, rent and gas prices increases the risk of housing insecurity, especially among senior adults.
Off campus, the JCOC runs a program that helps veterans secure housing, works with local landlords to make housing more affordable and manages the city of Virginia Beach’s homeless shelter, which has more than 80 beds.
“We wanted to be part of the solution,” Walker said. “We see the challenges every day in trying to help our clientele find housing.”
People will likely move in starting in mid-July. Residents, who the center will choose based on a list provided by the city’s Department of Housing and Neighborhood Preservation, will sign a 12-month lease. The amount of rent they pay will be based on their income, and the rest will be subsidized by the city, Walker said.
“This isn't a shelter,” said Allison Stanton McDuffie, a JCOC board member. “This isn't like a temporary bed. This is their home until they are ready to move on.”
Some might stay for a year, while others may stay the rest of their lives. For however long they stay, every resident will have a case manager to help them in other areas, such as substance abuse, mental health, financial literacy and job training.
“If you're in a safe space, you got a better chance of addressing some of those needs,” Walker said.
'Persistence is our superpower'
Building affordable housing came with its own challenges for the JCOC. The biggest one was opposition from neighborhood groups and city leadership in 2017, Walker said.
“It was a lot of NIMBYism,” he said, using the acronym for Not In My Backyard. “What I learned through that process, though, was a lot of stereotypes about what homelessness is.”
The pushback delayed the approvals progress, but the city eventually greenlit the project in December 2019.
Raising money was another hurdle, but the community threw its weight behind the vision, said McDuffie, who led the fundraising campaign for the project.
“I don't know anything bigger than that willingness to do with less so that someone else can have more,” she said. “And that's why we were successful, because we had so many people that clearly think that way.”
When Walker looks at the building, he said he sees the faces of everyone — advocates, city leadership and private donors — who made it a reality. It also reminds him of what’s possible.
“I'm not content, and I'm not satisfied,” he said. “Because I know if we as a community have the ability to do this, if we continue to work together, we can do so much more.”
