Rochester’s only permitted homeless encampment is slated to resume operating after over three years on hiatus. It's expected to cost nearly $2 million per year.
This month, the Rochester City Council is slated to vote on granting $1.2 million to City Roots Community Land Trust to operate Peace Village on Industrial Street, which it owns and manages. That money is coming from the city's share of a state settlement with opioid manufacturers.
Rochester has received $5.1 million from those settlements since 2022 as of last October, according to city records.
The legislation was introduced by Mayor Malik Evans and City Council President Miguel Melendez. If approved, the project would be expected to be completed this fall.
Person-Centered Housing Options would likely serve as a subcontractor under City Roots to deliver onsite services to Peace Village. Those include addiction support, medical needs, and support in finding stable housing.
"The population that we're dealing with at Peace Village, or will be dealing with, are really the hardest to serve among our homeless population, the most resistant to coming off of the street, if you will," said Deputy Mayor Mike Burns. "They have been in homelessness chronically, so this is kind of meeting them where they are, or close to where they are, to providing that first step into ultimately what we hope will be housing."
Peace Village was formed in 2018, following the clearing of a homeless encampment of the same name on South Avenue. For much of its existence, the site was a rundown collection of sheds; some half-burnt. The site was often strewn with garbage and infested with rats.
In early 2023, following the clearing of a homeless encampment on Loomis Street, Meléndez introduced legislation which allocated $750,000 to fund the purchase of 19 prefabricated micro shelters from Everett, Washington-based Pallet. The shelters include heat, water, and power.
The legislation passed; the shelters were delivered that spring, and sitework began. But snag after snag kept the project from getting off the ground. Peace Village Inc., the nonprofit that oversaw the encampment, lost its nonprofit status after failing to file its taxes on time. It has since regained its nonprofit status.
Finding an organization to take on insurance responsibilities proved to be another difficulty.
Those struggles effectively put rebuilding Peace Village on hold. The site was left vacant, and the Pallet shelters sat in storage in a city-owned lot on Dewey Avenue.
"This was a challenge to figure out the funding mechanisms and to try to line up support," Melendez said. "I'm hopeful that we're able to partner with county government to bring additional resources to the site longer term. But we're taking a leap of faith here."
The city estimates the annual cost to operate Peace Village at $1.9 million, including all outreach services and on-site security. There has been no official plan established for Monroe County to fund the site, although city officials said there are conversations happening. The city also has not established a long-term funding plan for Peace Village.
"The people that will be served by Peace Village in the beginning and going forward, success would be that it becomes the place where hope begins for them," said Erik Frisch, commissioner of the city's Department of Neighborhood and Business Development. "That despite the traumas that they've been through, the hardships that they've experienced, that they find a place where that hope can begin, that that trust can begin, and that they're able to move through there in a way that gets them to housing."
Both Frisch and Burns noted that as Peace Village moves forward it will use a different model than it previously had, even suggesting it would undergo a name change in the future.
Historically, there was no barrier or application process to stay at the site. Moving forward, residents at Peace Village would be forwarded to the site by Person-Centered Housing Options.
City officials were also unclear on how the site would handle people using substances. Burns said intravenous drug users, for example, would not be barred from using the site.
"I think we know these are people who aren't able to go to a lot of other places for various reasons," Burns said.
Melendez said that behavior would not be allowed on site, although the oversight would not take a punitive approach. Both pointed to Person-Centered Housing Options for clarity on how addiction would be addressed clinically on site.
Multiple calls to Person-Centered Housing Options leadership were not returned.
