NEWS BRIEFS: One80 Place meets $24 million affordable housing goal 

Illustration courtesy One80 Place

Staff reports  | A recent $250,000 grant from Dominion Energy pushed One80 Place, a local nonprofit developing affordable housing for the homeless, over a $24 million goal to build more housing.

The multi-million-dollar project, known as 573 Meeting Street, will be a permanent home for more than 70 formerly homeless individuals, and the second floor will be a brand-new family shelter for women and children.  Annually, One80 Place re-houses or prevents homelessness for nearly 1,000 individuals.

“Partners like Dominion Energy make ending homelessness possible,” said Stacey W. Denaux, One80 Place’s CEO. “This unique building will pull women and children out of immediate crisis with a brand-new family shelter. 

“Having truly affordable apartments, on the peninsula, will be a game-changer for so many homeless individuals working in the hotels and restaurants that make Charleston such a desirable destination,” 

The challenge of building affordable housing in downtown Charleston – close to jobs, services and public transportation – is the high cost of construction, the nonprofit said. Public funds from the city of Charleston, the S.C. State Housing Finance and Development Authority, and the S.C. Department of Mental Health, which totalled $13.7 million, were not going to be enough to keep financing down. One80 Place needed to raise $4.5 million in private philanthropic funds to make the project work.

Thanks to 85 private citizens, corporations and foundations, the organization said it raised 96 percent of its fundraising goal by December 2019, a release said. The donation that put the campaign over its goal was a $200,000 grant from Dominion Energy. 

“Our commitment to South Carolina goes well beyond the delivery of safe and reliable energy,” said Rodney Blevins, president of Dominion Energy South Carolina. “We are proud to partner with One80 Place as they work to meet critical community needs and provide affordable housing for those who need it most.”

 One80 Place plans to break ground on the project this summer.  573 Meeting Street will be built just steps from One80 Place’s current location, on the site of its original shelter, which was demolished in 2017.  

One80 Place’s mission is to end and prevent homelessness one person, one family at a time.  Today, One80 Place re-houses or prevents homelessness for nearly 1,000 individuals annually. Services include housing case management, shelter (160 beds nightly), a community kitchen, a health clinic, legal services, and employment training services.     

Also in the news:

Gun reform stalled.  Charleston legislators say a bevy of bills — from those seeking to curb gun purchases for some to others that want to expand gun access for all — are likely to meet a quiet demise in the second year of a two-year session that is laser-focused on education and Santee Cooper. 

“We’re at a standstill both with gun reform and gun expansion,” Charleston Democratic Sen. Marlon Kimpson last week told sister publication Statehouse Report.. “I don’t think you’ll see any of those bills come to the floor this year and, if they do, it will be purely for political posturing.”

Senate Bill 139, which  would allow anyone to carry a weapon without a permit, is on the Senate calendar for second reading, but falls further behind every day on the chamber’s contested slate. Carrying weapons without a permit is known by supporters as “constitutional carry.” 

But most bills on either side of the issue remain without hearings in committees. Kimpson is a sponsor of Senate Bill 731, which would expand background checks, also known as closing the Charleston loophole. The bill has been pushed every year since a white supremacist slayed nine black church goers in Charleston in 2015. It would extend the wait time for FBI background checks from three days to five days in South Carolina.  It is stuck without a hearing in the Judiciary Committee.

Charleston Democratic Rep. Wendell Gilliard also is sponsor of pending gun-safety legislation .

“There will be other tragedies until we either put up or shut up. That’s the bottom line,” he said this week.  “When you look at South Carolina, as a whole, we need gun reform. Guns are any and everywhere and the statistics prove it.”

The Giffords Law Center, a gun safety group that h says stronger gun laws prevent gun violence, recently gave South Carolina an “F” for its “weak” gun laws. South Carolina has the 12th highest gun death rate in the nation, and the state is ranked seventh for exporting guns used in crimes elsewhere.  Read the full story here.

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