Former Greyhound station becomes temporary refuge for the homeless, as Norfolk plans permanent shelter

Norfolk — Once a refuge for weary travelers, Norfolk’s defunct downtown Greyhound Station now hosts dozens of the city’s homeless.

A phalanx of tents — most elevated onto pallets — sprung up last Saturday inside the chain-link fence surrounding the lot where buses bound for D.C. or Charlotte or beyond once idled.

The location is temporary, a stopgap until the city can find a more permanent shelter location, said Sarah Paige Fuller, who runs the city’s Community Services Board. She expects to relocate the shelter operation by October.

The Greyhound shelter isn’t fully up and running yet. The main lobby area is usable, serving as a central area to distribute food and for people to use the restrooms, but plumbing and electrical work need to be completed to make other areas fully usable. Some doors need new locks and work remains to be done on the fire suppression system before they can have people there full-time.

After that’s done over the next week or so, Fuller said they’ll be able to host some people on cots overnight in the day-use area. Between that and the 55 tents out back, she expects there will be space for 80 people per night.

The city also is ordering more robust individual shelters — what effectively look like 8 foot by 8 foot huts complete with heating and cooling — to eventually replace the tents. Those are expected to arrive between 6 and 8 weeks.

“They love it, the individual space,” Fuller said, as opposed to sleeping in a single room with dozens of others on cots as they typically have to when churches set up accommodations.

The city’s cold weather shelter operation, which had been serving around 50 homeless folks every night at First Presbyterian Church in Ghent since last fall, closed out its extended season at the end of April. When it did, virtually all the people who’d been sleeping on cots at First Presbyterian moved to the Greyhound lot, which the city owns.

The pandemic has fueled a rise in homelessness across the nation. Not only are more people sleeping outside, but community resources the homeless have traditionally relied on — such as libraries — have been closed to the public, restricting access to restrooms or a place to avoid inclement weather.

An impromptu camp on 19th Street has drawn attention. It’s a collection of roughly 18 tents behind Ghent School that resulted from other shelters being full and numbers on the street growing. Fuller said last month street homelessness has doubled in Norfolk, and the worst may be yet to come as eviction moratoriums expire.

Even with things like the hotel stay program Norfolk started this year to house the most vulnerable during the pandemic, the need has been so great that the city has been aiming to set up its first permanent year-round shelter.

The city initially eyed the city-owned Willis Building, two blocks away at the corner of Church Street and Brambleton Avenue, but roof leaks and other issues made the building unusable.

Fuller said they explored several other options before settling on the Greyhound station.

“It’s almost impossible to find the right site that can be converted to this use,” Fuller said.

She said they’re looking to find an open space for some kind of prefabricated building to serve as a permanent shelter. That building would be the hub for the hut-like individual shelters that will replace the tents at the Greyhound site in a month or two, Fuller said.

City caseworkers will be at the Greyhound site each day starting this week to provide aid for those who sleep there or come by during the day. The day services at the station are available for anyone who needs them, not just those sleeping there.

For now, volunteers and staff are focused on encouraging vaccinations — proof of vaccine isn’t mandatory to stay at the Greyhound Station — and helping those staying in the lot with employment, Fuller said.

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The city also brought in a pair of shower trailers to give folks a place to wash off.

The existing bus station building opened in the early 1960′s, replacing one originally built in 1942.

The city initially said the Greyhound station would be demolished in 2019 to make way for a big, new Tidewater Community College culinary and arts facility. However, Greyhound continued using the building until 2020 as fundraising issues for TCC caused delays.

Late last year, the TCC project was effectively canceled after the effort’s namesake donors — Douglas and Patricia Perry — withdrew their $2.5 million donation.

Mayor Kenny Alexander has indicated the city plans to replace the nearly 60-year-old bus station, but no further announcement has been made about long-term plans for the site.

For the next few months, anyway, the facility once meant for those just passing through will be the destination for those with nowhere else to go.

Ryan Murphy, 757-739-8582, ryan.murphy@pilotonline.com