Jamestown Mayor Eddie Sundquist addresses Jamestown City Council (October 17, 2022)
The City of Jamestown has received a $194,000 HUD grant to help deal with homelessness issues.
Jamestown Mayor Eddie Sundquist, in his Mayor’s report to City Council, said the city will have to develop a plan for use of the funds with U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development encouraging that it be used for rapid response.
He said resource providers, local church organizations, and medical providers have met to discuss both long-term solutions and short term emergency shelter.
Sundquist said Chautauqua Opportunities, Inc. has taken the lead with the county on the issue and that one to two sites have been identified as potential emergency winter shelters, “So, it would be a nighttime, usually from around 4:00 p.m. to 9:00 a.m. Those sites would also then provide security at the locations, food, we’d have other churches and other groups provide resources there. We’d have social workers and other resource providers come to that location and we were also talking about potentially having once a week a medical provider come on site.”
Sundquist said they hope to get details finalized in the next week. He said with the weather turning cooler there is a need for emergency shelters, “On an average night across Chautauqua County when there is a ‘Code Blue,’ the weather is under 32 degrees, they have about seven people across the county that they have to shelter. That number is expected to double or triple this year with just Jamestown alone.”
Sundquist said resource providers are also discussing creating a shelter just for people with addiction needs or who are in recovery. He added that most of the current shelters in Jamestown are full.
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