New homeless shelter in the works

With funding coming in from various parts of the community, the Inter-Faith Council For Social Service is one step closer to building its new shelter.

The council announced Monday it has received $700,000 for the new homeless shelter from the North Carolina Housing Finance Agency and from the town of Chapel Hill.

The funds will go toward a $5.6 million facility to rehabilitate homeless men in the area. The shelter will be located at 1315 Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.

UNC has leased the site to the council, whose shelter program has served the community for 27 years.

“The most important part of this allocation is a signal to the community that another funding agency has given us money and we have more to raise,” he said.

The agency will contribute $600,000 to the project ­— the highest possible award — as a deferred loan, so long as the new facility keeps to its original purpose.

Mary Reca Todd, the agency’s spokeswoman, said it is honored to help out with the development.

“We will maintain a long-term relationship with them for the life of the project,” she said.

Chapel Hill’s Community Development Block Grant Program is providing another $100,000 for the shelter.

Loryn Clark, neighborhood and community services manager for Chapel Hill, said the grant was approved by the Town Council in April — about one month before the project’s special-use permit was approved.

Clark said the program, which receives $450,000 annually, is federally funded and is not included in the town’s budget.

In June, the Town Council approved the IFC’s Good Neighbor Plan, which seeks to address concerns about the shelter’s impact on surrounding neighborhoods.

Moran said support from the community is vital to the project’s success.

“The message for the community is that these are not just IFC projects,” he said.

Moran said the council is actively fundraising to match the $100,000 allocation from Chapel Hill.

He said he hopes to have all the money raised by next summer, and $67,000 has been raised so far.

“I’m making it realistic. We will raise the money. We have to raise the money,” he said.

Moran said he wants to break ground on the site by the summer of 2013.

Contact the desk editor at city@dailytarheel.com.