When community members think of Lexington, homelessness may not be the first thing that comes to mind.
However, more than 500 people in Rockbridge County are at risk of facing housing insecurity, said Marilyn Alexander, a Lexington City Council member.
The Rockbridge Racial Equity Coalition hosted a forum of local leaders to discuss homelessness in the community on Sept. 24. The organization helps address inequalities in employment, education, healthcare and housing.
Anna Crockett, the chair of the Rockbridge Racial Equity Coalition, said the coalition decided to host this event to raise awareness of the risk factors of homelessness and the scope of the problem in the community.
“There seems to be a lot of unawareness about homelessness because we don’t see it that much,” Crockett said. “If we don’t see people on the streets that look homeless, the assumption is that there isn’t a homelessness issue.”
“There’s a myth that homelessness does not exist in Rockbridge County,” said Lindsey Perez, the director of the Rockbridge Area Relief Association.
Many unhoused residents do not even realize they are homelessness, said Lori Ashbridge, a community health worker. To them, homelessness looks like people living on the street.
Much of the unhoused population of the county lives in their cars, with family members, or in campsites, Alexander said.
The results of a study on housing conditions in the county will soon be released, Alexander said. An early estimate said 644 Rockbridge County residents are at risk of housing insecurity.
One of the leading risk factors that contribute to homelessness in Rockbridge County is domestic violence, said Judy Casteele, the director of Project Horizon.
Project Horizon, a local domestic violence shelter, provided 3,494 nights of shelter to community members in 2023, Casteele said. In the past five years, Project Horizon served 290 people who said they were homeless because of domestic violence.
There is currently no homeless shelter in Rockbridge County, so the unhoused population has few permanent housing options.
Casteele wishes there was more funding to help combat housing insecurity, she said. She wants local governments to acknowledge homelessness as an important issue and support efforts to combat it.
Wayne Handley, the Buena Vista police chief, said community members should speak to legislators about the homelessness crisis in the area.
“You have got to make sure that the people who are writing checks and making laws know that something needs to happen,” Handley said. “You’ve got to convince them that this is a problem.”
A lack of affordable housing is another leading contributor to homelessness in the community, Ashbridge said. The average rent in the county is nearly $1,000 per month.
“I can’t even afford the rent in Rockbridge County,” Ashbridge said.
Lydia Campbell, a manager for the Valley Community Services Board, works to connect unhoused individuals to housing options with affordable leases. She said that permanent housing is the most effective solution to combating housing insecurity.
“You could have a shelter, but until you have permanent housing to move people into, they’re just going to get stuck there,” Perez said.
However, efforts to build low-income housing are not always successful. Echelon Resources, Inc., had plans to construct affordable apartments at two sites in Lexington, but the company scrapped the project when city council declined to provide tax breaks, according to a September article in the Rockbridge Report.
Panelists also shared what support already exists for those facing homelessness, including the Rockbridge Area Relief Association.
“We want to prevent homelessness in the first place,” Perez said. “When people are past due on their rent and are facing eviction, we can assist them in those cases to prevent them from becoming homeless.”
The coalition plans to hold a second panel in the spring of 2025 to discuss how community organizations can collaborate to address homelessness.
