Salisbury, MD – Points of discussion surrounding Anne Street Village that came out of the June 3, 2024 City Council meeting may not have been clear. Two separate issues were discussed concurrently and the City would like to clarify those two separate subjects.
First, the City has no plans to close Anne Street Village. In late March, the City began to gauge interest from groups and organizations within the Salisbury community to see if any were interested in partnering on the project.
More than one organization expressed interest in partnering with the City in the operation of Anne Street in one way or another, so the City is now in the process of issuing a Request For Proposals that is geared toward identifying the best partner and plan to help get the best results from the asset.
“This RFP for Anne Street Village is being sought to find a partner which will help allow the facility to be run at its full capacity by an agency that has a greater level of experience in the care of and management of homelessness,” Mayor Randy Taylor said.
The Council agenda item that returned Anne Street to the forefront of discussions once again was a proposed move by the administration that would allow Community Development Block Grant Funding from the Department of Housing and Urban Development to be used to finish the expansion project at the Truitt Street Community Center and the Waterside Park Restroom and Pavilion projects which received CDBG funding allocations in planning years 2021 and 2022.
The sum of $69,000, remained from CDBG funds originally allocated during the planning year 2023. That funding had been earmarked for one year’s salary for a part-time homeless services case manager ($19,000) and requested for improvements at Anne Street ($50,000).
Those improvements were specified as: “Construction and/or rehabilitation at the Anne Street Village tiny homes community for the homeless to include provision of a laundry facility, storage shed, additional security lighting and/or camera, a covered sitting area, and ADA modifications to shower units.”
As the City prepares for an outside partnership, the part-time case manager position was deemed surplus leaving that funding available for other eligible projects.
All listed improvements at Anne Street were addressed with alternate funding with the exception of the American Disabilities Act modifications to the restroom and shower units. After researching all options, it was determined that the $50,000 in funding was in no way adequate to address ADA compliance at the site.
The City was left with $69,000 in grant funds on one hand and a grant-eligible project that had gone over estimated costs on the other.
The Finance and Housing and Community Development Departments proposed a substantial amendment to the 2023 Block Grant Action plan to allow those funds to be reallocated.
From the administration’s perspective, finishing two popular projects that were affected by rising construction costs and then revisiting Anne Street funding at a later date with the knowledge of what a future community partnership would look like made good sense.
