IMPORTANT MESSAGE FROM JON DECARMINE RE ONE-STOP CENTER

The Gainesville City Commission will meet at 1p on Thursday, April 16 to select a site for the One-Stop Center we’ve had in the works since 2005. The One-Stop, known as GRACE Marketplace, is a centerpiece of the 10-year plan to end homelessness and is designed to complement, not supplant, existing service providers that are at or over capacity and need additional support.

PLEASE plan to attend to support this important project. Remind your commissioners that in order to utilize one-time federal stimulus funds, they must act immediately and make this decision. The One-Stop was originally slated to open on January 1, 2007 and has been bogged down in the politics of site selection for years. We must encourage the commission to choose a location and move forward. I’m requesting that any Coalition members who are able attend the meeting to voice your support for this project. Not only will it expand existing supportive services, but the One-Stop will provide countless opportunities to streamline service provision, increase the effectiveness of referrals and case management, and position the homeless assistance network more favorably in the eyes of grantmakers and other funders.

The presence of housing at this site is a critical victory for the Coalition, and something we need now more than ever. We have worked with the City throughout this process, and have negotiated and accepted what is likely to be an outlying location (not downtown) on the condition that the site selected is able to accommodate a substantial number of NEW housing units available to homeless people. The site selected should also be capable of hosting some form of city-sanctioned campground to host the growing numbers of unsheltered homeless people in Alachua County. Housing ends homelessness. Without housing, the One-Stop Center will have none of its intended benefits, and will not meet the most basic human rights and needs of people without housing in our community.

If you have any questions about the Marketplace, feel free to contact me or to talk to me at Wedneday’s ACCHH meeting.

If you cannot attend the meeting, please e-mail the Commission no later than Wednesday afternoon and tell them you support moving forward on this long-stalled project.

This link will open a new message addressed to every commissioner:

mailto:CityComm@cityofgainesville.org?subject=Please%20select%20a%20site%20for%20the%20One-Stop%20Center%20on%204/16

Thank you.

Sincerely,

Jon Decarmine