Durham group wants new downtown center to serve hundreds of homeless residents
As downtown Durham has become a vibrant hub of new businesses and residents, homelessness has remained a stark contrast in the background.
One local group wants to combat this issue by moving into an even more visible part of the downtown landscape.
Urban Ministries of Durham, the county’s largest public shelter, wants to move its headquarters at 410 Liberty St. around the block to East Main Street. Its proposed Homeless Services Center would be on the campus of St. Philip’s Episcopal Church and across the street from the county’s Department of Social Services.
The group started in the basement of the church over 40 years ago and has since grown to provide food, shelter, clothes and job assistance to over 6,500 people a year.
Sheldon Mitchell, the executive director, said the new center would centralize and make it easier for people to get services Urban Ministries provides with groups like Families Moving Forward, Lincoln Community Health Center, and Project Access, which works with uninsured and underserved residents.
The center would also offer mental health and substance use treatment.
The planned homeless center will span six stories and about 90,000 square feet, according to Brandy Thompson, a spokesperson for Raleigh-based developer Clearscapes.
St. Philip’s has offered 1.8 acres on the church’s campus to build the center, which is expected to cost about $72 million.
On May 5, Urban Ministries asked the county for $3 million to support pre-development costs for the center. The county currently funds about 10% of Urban Ministries’ annual budget. But for 2026, it is asking the county to increase its support to $660,000, or 16%, of its projected budget.
In an interview, Mitchell said Urban Ministries had about 150 beds for men, women and families, including nine rooms for families. There are also overflow cots. However, because of an increase in the number of unhoused people across the county, Urban Ministries’ waitlist exceeds capacity.
Each night, Urban Ministries sees hundreds of people who need a place to sleep. Last year, it housed 588 people who needed emergency shelter, and only 95 people moved on to permanent housing. It also serves about 654 meals a day in its community cafe.
“We know that with the current climate from the federal level that funding is being either reduced or eliminated in a number of ways, which further escalate the declines and the drawback on gains that’d been made,” Mitchell told county leaders.
“For us to be able to meet the needs of those coming to our doorstep in the midst of crisis, we definitely will have to have increased support from the community,” he said.
Why East Main Street?
Newman Aguiar, chair of the building committee, told the commissioners that building the center on East Main Street would allow Urban Ministries to maintain its current services during construction. Having social services across the street would help relieve barriers for people lacking transportation.
“We are keenly aware that community members often oppose sites over concerns about potential negative impacts of placing such a facility in their neighborhood,” Angular said. “The need for this collaborative impact project is urgent and can’t be overstated. … These are difficult times”
East Main Street already has several apartment buildings, businesses, restaurants and city and county government buildings.
The county commissioners didn’t promise Urban Ministries the $3 million to fund the new center at the meeting.
Commissioner Wendy Jacobs said the project would take years to complete and asked for a breakdown of the $3 million request, saying the number was high given the county’s other projects.
“With constrained budgets, we’ve got to be very cost-effective,” she said.
Jacobs also asked if Urban Ministries would collaborate with its current partners and other initiatives in the city to launch a short-term day center.
“We know we need a day center, we know that we need more housing for people, all different types of housing,” Jacobs said. “But we’ve also had a lot of solutions to come forward in the short term.”
Commissioner Mike Lee asked if Urban Ministries had looked at any other sites, calling the current proposal expensive. He suggested looking at available land that Durham Public Schools had.
“I absolutely believe this is integral to making Durham the place we believe it should be,” Lee said. “I’m just looking at the different options as we look at commitments this would take.”
Mitchell told the commissioners that Urban Ministries and Clearscapes had looked but has no other location at the moment.
The group is planning to collaborate with Open Table Ministries to open a temporary day-service site that would let people come indoors out of the elements and use computers, charging stations, restrooms and laundry, Mitchell said.
“That would just depend on where we would be able to find the location to set something up like that,” he said.
Homelessness by the numbers in Durham County
As of 2024, an estimated 415 people were homeless in Durham County, according to the most recent Point-In-Time count.
That’s about a 14% increase from the previous year but a 9.5% decrease from 2022 when there were an estimated 459 people who were experiencing homelessness.
Of the 2024 numbers, 246 were male and 285 were Black. The number of unhoused children in the county increased to 106, a 58% increase compared to the previous year.
Point in Time numbers are estimates taken on one night and don’t include people who don’t want to be counted or aren’t in encampments or areas where unhoused people are found at the time, Mitchell said.
“Number are up and rising,” Mitchell said. “Support, unfortunately, is declining in many aspects.”
In 2023 Feeding America reported that over 45,000 residents in Durham County, or about 14%, were food insecure. Since 2020, the cost of living increased by 22%. Rent in the city is between $1,300 to over $1,900 a month, according to Apartments.com.
“This is not just about an individual organization having a new facility,” Mitchell said. “It’s about capacity, it’s about services, it’s about impact for the system. ... This takes a collaborative effort between county, city and the community to see this be realized.”
This story was originally published May 19, 2025 at 5:30 AM with the headline "Durham group wants new downtown center to serve hundreds of homeless residents."