VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. — Earlier this week, Virginia Beach city leaders received an update on the number of those living unsheltered in the resort city and how officials are dealing with encampments.
A section of grass off of Virginia Beach Boulevard is now clear but weeks ago it was filled with trash, tents, and other personal items.
"Encampments are not a new issue but it appears to be increased visibility and we have definitely seen that post-pandemic," Ruth Hill, director of Housing and Neighborhood Preservation, said. "That is not something just happening in our community but in others as well."
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During a presentation to the council Tuesday afternoon, Hill said there are currently around 30 to 35 encampments around Virginia Beach.
This year it is believed over 300 homeless people are living in Virginia Beach, around 150 are unsheltered at any given time, and about 75 live in encampments.
Since April of this year, 38 encampments have been cleared, impacting around 38 people, 14 of which accepted shelter with the city.
18 were not interested and 5 people were arrested.
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The city does take a balance approached when trying to clear these sites by providing options for shelter and addressing sites that pose the biggest risk to the community.
Police Chief Paul Neudigate said it takes time to clear these encampments but there's another issue while work is being done.
"By the time we are working to clear this one and we have displaced homeless individuals from their encampment they are going somewhere and setting up a new location before we can even resolve this one," Neudigate said.
He said those cleanups can also become costly not just for the city but for sites on state property.
"At one point when we were dealing with Laskin and the Boulevard they notified us they [VDOT] were out of funding which paused the cleanup, it is estimated that clean up alone cost the State $100,000," Neudigate said.
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The Department of Housing and Preservation says there are several reasons why some may not want to take shelter such as not wanting to be away from pets or loved ones.
One constant issue is that there are not enough beds to assist everyone right away.
"We currently have 300 names on our by-names list so you can see with the number of shelter beds we have we cannot meet the need," Hill said.
There are currently 196 beds but the city is looking at ways to expand those numbers.
Hill said what is really needed for our area is more affordable housing to make sure people continue to move forward.
"What we know is even with a shelter increase if we don't have affordable housing for people to move in then they're going to bottleneck," Hill said.
Back in August staff with the Virginia Beach libraries asked the city council to move forward with an ordinance to restrict people from being on library property after hours.
This came after staff members had to clean up waste, including human waste, and a woman was attacked while spending the night back in May.
At that meeting, the council requested more information on what homelessness looks like in Virginia Beach.
As of right now, it is still unclear if an ordinance will move forward.
