THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, January 11, 1995 TAG: 9501110417
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY KAREN JOLLY DAVIS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: BIRDSNEST LENGTH: Medium: 100 lines
In rural Northampton County, homeless people don't sleep on the sidewalk under newspapers. Homelessness is less visible here, but no less devastating.
An estimated 300 people or more in this farming community of about 14,000 have nowhere permanent to live. Most are women, abandoned, with two or three children. Some of the women are elderly. Some are sick.
They sleep in cars or bunk with acquaintances, wandering from place to place, working, but getting nowhere. The county has no shelter for the homeless - yet.
That gap is about to be filled. Leona Mapp, who once managed a 19-story, low-income apartment house in Philadelphia, asked the federal government for $1.5 million to convert the tumble-down Candlelight Motel into transitional housing for the homeless. And she got it.
``When they told me that we had been funded, I started to have palpitations,'' said Mapp.
It doesn't bother Mapp, who married into an Eastern Shore family, that the motel units have been vandalized and smell of mildew. All that will be corrected.
``I have a picture of it in my mind,'' she said, looking at the debris and seeing something else. ``I see it done.''
While there is no official homeless count on the Eastern Shore, Mapp said she had personally contacted at least 100 families, averaging three members each.
Mapp heads the housing division of Virginia's Eastern Shore Economic Empowerment and Housing Corp., a new group formed by the merger of the Northampton Housing Trust and the Northampton Economic Empowerment Corp. She had neverwritten a grant application before.
The newly merged grassroots organizations have received hefty backing from the federal government. In addition to the $1.5 million housing grant, the Clinton administration recently awarded the group a $3 million economic development grant to improve life for the poor on the Eastern Shore.
Mapp's group has big plans for the Candlelight - plans that go far beyond a typical shelter.
Fifteen of the motel's best units will be rehabilitated and used as living space, said Mapp. The rooms need fire walls and a new heating system, but the roof is in excellent condition. Other than a good cleaning, she said, the rooms will need little work.
After rehabilitation, the old Candlelight Restaurant will house the shelter's office and reception area. It will also have a kitchen, dining area, living room and library.
``We felt the families needed a little privacy,'' said Mapp. ``Somewhere the kids can do their homework and have a place to sit. The trauma of being homeless - what it does to a child - is unreal.''
When the restaurant closed more than a year ago, the owners left it furnished and equipped. The kitchen is greasy but fully equipped, down to an apple corer.
``Everything's here,'' said Mapp. ``I even have table linens. I think it's wonderful.''
The Candlelight's bar will be transformed into a Head Start center for preschool classes. Burned motel units will be demolished and replaced with offices for the housing corporation. The new complex will also have classrooms and a community recreation center.
After rehabilitation, another small building on the property will become a ``primary care clinic'' for homeless families, said Mapp. There, counselors and nurses will assess the families' needs and organize the appropriate community services.
Mapp's plans don't end with the Candlelight. The shelter is intended to be transitional housing, not permanent. The next step is to find families a real home.
To help solve that problem, the housing corporation bought 30 acres of farmland on Sylvan Scene Road near Machipongo. The group hopes to build a rural village there with affordable housing. At this point there are no final plans for this project, and no funding. But Mapp is confident that the housing group will be able to build that last block in its ``continuum of care.''
``We are going to build a community there,'' she said without wavering.
The Candlelight project will cost serious money. When state grants are added to the federal money, said housing group officials, funding will total $2 million. Some of that will go toward hiring an administrator for the shelter for three years, plus case managers, housing aides and maintenance and security staffers.
Competition for the $1.5 million federal grant, the mainstay of the Candlelight program, was intense. Nationwide, 1,140 groups asked for money. In the end, 271 applicants received $300 million in grants.
Mapp hopes construction at the Candlelight will be finished in May or June. After that, the real work of rescuing the homeless will begin in Northampton County.
``I'm excited. I really am excited,'' said Mapp. ``I just believe that this is going to help us address a real critical need here.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photo
PAUL AIKEN/Staff
Leona Mapp and housing specialist Marvin Lee, both of the Eastern
Shore Economic Empowerment and Housing Corp., in the dining area of
the Candlelight Motel. The new agency plans to convert the former
motel into the first homeless shelter in Northampton County, on
Virginia's Eastern Shore.
by CNB