A ribbon-cutting ceremony was held on June 16 for a new 12-unit housing project in Gloucester for individuals with a mental health disability. The first tenants have already moved in.
The project, years in the planning, is a joint effort of the Middle Peninsula-Northern Neck Community Services Board and Woodland Pointe, Inc., a nonprofit foundation in charge of helping operate the facility.
Woodland Pointe Apartments, located on Dixon Lane off Belroi Road near Gloucester Court House, is a significant project, foundation chairman Harrison Dixon said, especially since often rural areas are “an afterthought” in terms of receiving funds to benefit the homeless and those with mental health problems.
The project was made a reality, CSB executive director Chuck Walsh said, because of a $1.3 million federal Housing and Urban Development Section 811 grant and an approximately $362,000 grant from the Virginia Department of Housing and Community Development.
Willie Fobbs, associate director of housing for VHCD, said that a seldom-seen General Assembly appropriation to benefit mental health allowed the state agency to supplement needed funds for about a half dozen projects around the state—including Woodland Pointe. Fobbs said there’s a great need for more housing to help those with mental problems and the homeless.
Walsh said all of the 12 apartments are expected to be filled within a couple of weeks. Ten of the units are for single occupants, he said, and two can hold two occupants each.
Persons residing there must be employed, volunteer in the community, or be in a day program, Walsh said, and the apartments are aimed at housing individuals served by the six counties on the Middle Peninsula and four counties on the Northern Neck that the CSB covers. CSB staff will check in on the tenants and provide assistance.
All of the occupants have already been selected, Walsh said, and a waiting list is being kept. For more information, call 804-333-5221 or 804-832-5303.
Walsh said his agency serves approximately 1,200 people each year who are severely mentally ill. Unfortunately, many of them don’t have adequate housing arrangements, he said, although CSB also operates special apartment complexes in Lively and Kilmarnock, plus two transitional living quarters and eight homes elsewhere in the region—altogether the facilities house more than 80 mentally ill individuals.
Del. Keith Hodges (R-Urbanna) said during the ceremony that the problems of mentally ill residents and the homeless are real. It’s not just in big cities, he said, but “it’s here.”
Woodland Pointe is targeted at low-income families with chronic mental health disabilities, a CSB brochure said. The apartments are designed to employ green strategies to improve indoor air quality, water conservation and energy efficiency, the brochure said, and “enhance the health and sustainability of their surrounding communities.”
Approximately three dozen people attended the ceremony, which was followed by a tour of the apartments and a lunch for invited guests.