New homeless shelter won’t open until summer

The Inter-Faith Council for Social Service is behind schedule for construction on its new State Employees’ Credit Union Community House.

The community house, located at 1315 Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., will offer a transitional housing program to help men who are homeless recover and become productive members of the community.

The project was set to be completed in early spring of 2015 but is now being pushed back until summer of 2015.

John Dorward, the executive director of the IFC, said the project has taken longer to start because construction costs have gone up.

“We all have worked on it on a daily basis until we got it back down where the budget is doable,” he said during the IFC annual meeting Thursday.

The new shelter will have 52 transitional beds and 17 emergency beds used for inclement weather.

The town of Chapel Hill owns the current shelter located on the corner of Rosemary and North Columbia streets. Town officials haven’t decided what to do with the building yet, but the IFC’s community kitchen will continue to operate there.

Dorward said the capital campaign for the project raised $5.76 million over three and a half years.

The largest donor was the State Employees’ Credit Union, which contributed $1 million to the campaign, he said.

“It was beginning to look like we were gonna have a hard time getting there,” he said. “But we got to the final number thanks to a generous donation from CT Wilson Construction who has lowered their profit margin slightly.”

Dorward said the IFC had to change general contractors to CT Wilson Construction after the previous contractor backed out.

Rebecca McCulloh, whose last day as IFC president was Thursday, said that by the next annual meeting the shelter should be finished.

“The dream will be a reality,” she said. “That’s a miracle.”

Construction of the building will take approximately 10 months to complete. The IFC expects to get a building permit within the next two weeks so construction can begin on the community house.

Randy Best and Jan Broughton, members of the Ethical Humanist Society of the Triangle, said their organization donates to the efforts of the IFC.

“We’ve been strong supporters of the shelter for a long time,” Broughton said. “It will be more of a home facility for these men.”

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