Virginia Beach boosts efforts to aid homeless at Oceanfront

VIRGINIA BEACH — The Oceanfront isn’t just a place where tourists flock. Homeless people congregate there, too.

And with the nights getting cooler, the city is launching a new homelessness campaign at the Oceanfront to connect people to community resources.

“Get & Give Help” signs will be installed in public restrooms, parking garages and other areas where people tend to congregate and panhandle, said Ruth Hill, the city’s homeless services administrator.

The 12-by-18-inch signs will feature the phone number for the regional housing crisis hotline and a QR Code that can be scanned. It will take people to a new website with links to food, shelter and veterans services as well as ways to donate or volunteer.

Hill presented the campaign to the City Council on Tuesday. Starting Nov. 4, Hill will become the new director of Virginia Beach Housing & Neighborhood Preservation.

She said Get & Give Help takes a positive approach to the homelessness issue.

“Rather than telling people don’t give, we’re giving them an opportunity on how to give,” said Hill. “Rather than telling people don’t panhandle, we’re going to give them an opportunity of how to get help.”

For 10 years, red parking meters repurposed into donation receptacles had been used at the Oceanfront to raise money for homeless resources, but people stopped contributing and the condition of the meters deteriorated. In June, the city removed all of them.

Last spring, two homeless outreach workers began working out of the new Resort Management Office at the Oceanfront to engage with people and assess their needs, Hill said.

The outreach workers can provide rides to the Housing Resource Center on Witchduck Road, she said.

The $25 million facility serves families and individuals experiencing homelessness or a housing crisis. It fully reopened in July after reducing services during the pandemic.

“We’ve been rocking and rolling ever since,” Hill said. “As soon as people move out or get housed or leave, we are putting people back in.”

The winter shelter program, which serves up to 60 people who spend the night at area churches, will resume soon too, after a hiatus last year.

Panhandling remains a concern throughout the city. An informal survey by the police in 2019 revealed that 30-40% of panhandlers were not homeless and that more than half of the panhandlers were not from Virginia Beach.

Councilwoman Sabrina Wooten had asked city staff to look at ways to address the issue, including placing signs in medians to direct motorists where to donate. Traffic engineering did not recommend placing signs at the intersections where panhandling is prevalent, in part, because they can be distracting, Hill said.

But the signs that will be coming to the Oceanfront could also be placed in other “pedestrian-oriented” parts of the city, according to her presentation.