Community House Update - September 21, 2018

Dear Elected Leaders and Community Members,

Inter-Faith Council for Social Service, Inc. (IFC) recently proposed an update to the Community House Good Neighbor Plan (GNP) to address Orange County's pressing need for low-barrier, housing-focused shelter. This model is nationally proven to be more effective, appropriate, and cost-efficient at ending homelessness than transitional housing. Restrictions imposed by the GNP impact IFC’s ability to serve vulnerable residents forced to sleep outside and divert resources from our community’s primary mission - ending homelessness.

The GNP update was intended to be a starting point to facilitate an inclusive, thoughtful, transparent community conversation about how we can end homelessness for people currently unable to access Community House. We have received valuable input from community members at meetings to date. However, we want to ensure broader dissemination of accurate information to get constructive input from a greater, more diverse number of stakeholders.

To that end, IFC has decided not to seek action on the GNP this fall, and we have removed the proposed GNP update document from our website. Instead, we encourage all community stakeholders to anticipate and engage in a collaborative process for developing solutions to the unmet needs of our neighbors experiencing homelessness.

As planned, IFC will hold the last of our scheduled community meetings on Monday, September 24, 6-7:30pm at United Church of Chapel Hill. The panel will focus on answering questions posed by those in attendance. We hope you will join us. Thank you for your time and attention to this process.

In community,

Jackie Jenks
Executive Director