Richmond City Council’s Emergency Human Services Committee heard extended public testimony and heard city staff describe immediate and longer-term steps to address unsheltered homelessness after a recent cold-weather emergency and a spike in stolen SNAP (EBT) benefits.

Residents and advocates told the committee that overflow shelters and outreach did not meet need during the cold snap, citing adults and children left outdoors and at hotels; nonprofit providers described operating challenges and called for more permanent, deeply affordable housing. “The people living on the streets absolutely cannot wait any longer,” said Tracy Hartney Scott, housing chair for the Virginia State Conference NAACP in Richmond.

The committee’s deputy chief administrative officer for human services, Tracy DeShazer, said city staff “hear you. We see you, and we appreciate you continuing to…work with us,” and outlined near-term and system-level priorities: expand year-round bed capacity where possible, improve the coordinated-entry “front door” for people in crisis, identify walk-up intake locations, and convene a stakeholder group in the next two to three weeks to coordinate partners and data.

Why it matters: Committee members, providers and advocates stressed that shelters alone cannot end homelessness; they argued that stable, deeply affordable housing and supportive services are required to reduce returns to the street. At the same time advocates said immediate, life‑saving shelter and food access must be reliably available during extreme weather.

What advocates reported
- Several speakers described clients and neighbors left outdoors during dropping temperatures and questioned why overflow shelters closed when overnight lows were expected to fall. Leron Gibson, who said he is currently unhoused, told the committee: “There’s people out here freezing on the streets. Two of them died.”
- Providers and outreach workers described surge operation burdens: volunteers and city staff ran 24/7 overflow shelters during the urgent window, but that staffing model is not sustainable.
- Housing Families First’s executive director Beth Van Turnbull said the nonprofit spends roughly $1 million annually to move families into permanent housing and estimated about $4,000 per household to achieve move-in costs; she said 88% of families leaving the agency’s shelter move to permanent housing.

City operations and constraints
- City staff described the program architecture and limits. DeShazer said the city is responsible for roughly 200 of the region’s 400 shelter beds and that the Greater Richmond Continuum of Care (GRCOC) manages coordinated entry and prioritization for most shelter placements.
- Tiffany Ford, director of the Department of Neighborhood and Community Services, said the city ran two overflow shelters during the recent emergency and provided cots and three meals a day but that staff had been redeployed from other duties and volunteers’ involvement is not a sustainable long-term model.
- Steve Harms, senior policy advisor to the chief administrative officer, said the city has added about 100 year‑round beds and now has “over 300 beds operating year round throughout the city,” and that 50 beds at the Salvation Army site operate year‑round while an additional 100 beds there serve as surge/inclement‑weather capacity.

Inclement-weather vs. year-round shelter
- City staff and providers explained the difference: year‑round shelters typically include assessments and sustained case management that support rapid rehousing, while inclement‑weather or walk-up shelters are transient and cannot reliably provide multi-session casework. “Inclement weather looks very different,” DeShazer said, noting overdose and behavioral-health incidents occur in congregate, low‑barrier settings and that wraparound services are harder to deliver when stays are intermittent.
- Committee members pressed for a move away from a short seasonal model; staff said provider business models and facility availability make a rapid shift to fully year‑round walk‑up shelter challenging without leased space, experienced staff and sustainable funding.

Planned next steps and requests
- The committee asked staff to convene a stakeholder group — including nonprofit providers, grassroots advocates, faith partners and the GRCOC — in the next two to three weeks to discuss immediate surge capacity, permanent sites and operational commitments. The deputy CAO said that meeting would be publicly noticed.
- Council members and staff discussed reviving or issuing a public RFI/RFP to solicit faith‑community partners and other facility owners willing to host overflow or year‑round shelter operations.
- The committee discussed pursuing transformative pilots, including hospital partnerships to fund permanent supportive housing beds and the concept of locally administered rental subsidy vouchers to speed rehousing; staff said both concepts would be revisited with updated proposals.

EBT theft and emergency food response
- Multiple speakers and staff raised a separate but related emergency: a recent, rapid rise in reports of stolen SNAP (EBT) benefits that left households without food during the holidays. DeShazer described the thefts as “not fraud” by recipients but “theft” by outside actors and said the federal reimbursement program that covered replacements ended Dec. 21, leaving state and local agencies without the same reimbursement stream.
- The Richmond Department of Social Services had received 151 claims by the afternoon before the committee meeting; the city has been coordinating food‑bank partners (including FeedMore) and local pantries to distribute emergency food while the agency documents claims and pursues state and federal processes. DeShazer said the city and advocates are exploring philanthropic and local funding options to supplant lost federal reimbursement while prosecutors’ offices review leads.

Public comment and community observations
- Dozens of residents, faith leaders and nonprofit representatives urged quicker action, better outreach, bridge funding and greater involvement of grassroots organizations in planning. Pastor Daniel Holmes of Operation Thunder asked the city simply to “Give me a building” to house operations.

What was not decided
- The committee did not adopt any ordinance or contract in the meeting; discussion focused on planning, coordination and potential funding options. Staff said formal proposals (for example, an RFI or pilot funding request) would return to the committee for consideration.

Ending note
- Committee members directed staff to schedule the stakeholder convening within weeks, return with options for an RFI and to update the committee on both shelter capacity and the status of EBT-claim reimbursements and law‑enforcement follow‑up. The committee also said it would seek further briefings on coordinated-entry performance from GRCOC partners.