Sections of tiny houses that could serve as shelters for the homeless sit stacked in snow-covered bundles on a back lot off Dewey Avenue.
The city of Rochester bought the structures, built by Everett, Washington-based Pallet, in 2023. But a protracted planning effort has left the self-contained heated and cooled dwellings in storage.
The shelters were to replace a ramshackle assortment of dwellings on a plot of land at the edge of downtown known as Peace Village. Water service and electrical hookups were extended. But there is yet no clear direction for the shelters or Peace Village.
Completing the project is the top recommendation of an extensive report on homelessness released Monday by City Council President Miguel Meléndez. The 400-page document is meant to serve as a policy guide for the city, he said. Meléndez has spearheaded the effort and said all involved are frustrated at the lack of progress but “the big hang up at this point is making sure that we have discussions around the funding.”
That cost could be well over $1 million per year, according to the city’s contractor. The city, so far, has pledged a fraction of that — $290,000 — to cover oversight for a single year.
“All of the things that are getting in the way of it, whether it’s lack of funding, lack of political will, makes this dance about solutions and reports and grids a time waste," said Amy D’Amico, a volunteer homeless outreach worker and advocate.
“Fund it,” she continued. “Put your money where your mouth is.”
In 2025, an annual point-in-time count of the homeless found 1,194 people without permanent shelter in Monroe County, nearly double the number from the previous year. Last year also saw the closure of the last low-barrier shelter in the city — a shelter which will take anyone, regardless of sanctions or drug use. Peace Village would fill that void.
Peace Village, then and now
Peace Village was established in 2018 on Industrial Street, following the clearing of an encampment of the same name on South Avenue. The site was a shanty village with structures in various states of decay. The ground was often littered with trash and hypodermic needles, and the perimeter was made up of a berm infested with rats.
But for people who could not make it in the traditional shelter system, whether due to active addiction, mental illness, or sanctions, it was home.
The city razed Peace Village in March 2024 to make way for the new shelters. But disarray surrounding the nonprofits connected to the site stalled progress.
In early 2025, the city and City Roots Community Land Trust, which owns the Peace Village lot, went looking for an organization to oversee the site. That would include case management, site security including a camera systems, and maintenance.
Person-Centered Housing Options was the only applicant, and the group set out in May to develop an operational plan. But it was not clear then, or now, how to pay for any of it long-term.
“We want an operation like this to be renewable and sustainable,” said Nick Coulter, co-founder of Person-Centered Housing Options. “Getting into an operation that doesn't have an ongoing and strong operations funding source is not a smart move for the people that we serve, or for an organization to run.”
Coulter said PCHO’s operating plan for Peace Village should be seen by the Rochester City Council in the coming months. He estimated it will cost over $1 million per year to operate the site.
How exactly the city will pay for that is not clear, but Meléndez said near-term options include money received through a settlement with opioid manufacturers, and federal pandemic relief dollars specifically targeted toward homelessness and housing stability.
For homeless advocates, the protracted rollout of Peace Village has done tangible harm, especially during a particularly cold winter.
“People lose limbs, people lose pieces of limbs,” said Gary Harding of Recovery All Ways. “I don't know off the top of my head, but this year, I know plenty of folks lost tips of both of their feet. People have lost feet, fingers, fingertips. And I'm sure that's happening again right now.”
January 2026 was the second coldest month in the past decade in the Rochester area, with an average temperature of 23 degrees, according to data from the National Weather Service.
A new plan on homelessness
On Monday morning, Meléndez held a news conference at Family Promise, a homeless shelter on Webster Avenue. It was an opportunity to unveil six months of work from his office detailing what he thinks should guide the city’s policy on homelessness.
“I took the lead on this because of my own eyes,” said City Council President Miguel Meléndez, who spearheaded the project. “What I see out in the community. Every month, people come to us with different challenges from our neighborhoods. We have people who come to us and say we're really frustrated with what's happening or not happening with an encampment, or we're really frustrated that the city intervened on a vacant lot where there were tents, and I felt like there was a lot of pointing the fingers in all different directions.”
Along with completing Peace Village, the document recommends declaring a state of emergency on homelessness, expanding “neighborhood ambassador” programs that help connect people with resources, from housing to addiction treatment and mental health services, and increasing support for youth.
“The current ‘solution’ of having no low barrier shelter space for those in need forces homeless Rochesterians to take shelter in encampments which are unsafe, unregulated and unhelpful in solving the homelessness crisis,” the report reads.
Meléndez also noted that any type of change is going to need to be a collaborative effort. Generally speaking, issues of homelessness are handled by Monroe County.
“I think very highly of many of the officials and those who are working at the city level, at the county level, many of the nonprofits and organizations that are in this space that are trying their best to house people and support people,” Meléndez said. “But at the end of the day, there still is an issue where our most vulnerable residents are on the street.”
