New shelter for homeless at Louisville's Community Care Campus aimed for completion later this year

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- A new resource to help tackle Louisville's homeless crisis is getting closer to becoming a reality. The Community Care Campus is aimed at providing shelter, helping people find housing, get access to medical care and more.

"Providing more services and shelter for individuals who are homeless is critically important," Mayor Craig Greenberg said Tuesday morning.

Volunteers of America Mid-States recently released its master plan for the multi-phase project. The organization will help manage the campus, which is planned after the city spent nearly $7 million to purchase several buildings just off of South Floyd and East Breckinridge streets in May 2023. Those buildings include the Vu Hotel and Guesthouse, the C2 event space and a few other locations.

Jennifer Hancock, president and CEO of Volunteers of America Mid-States said the project is about more than just providing temporary shelter. She said the goal for Phase 1 is to create a family emergency shelter called Unity House. She said that work will begin this summer and should be completed by the end of 2024.

"There will be 34 rooms dedicated to families on this campus," Hancock said. "We'll take care of homeless youth and their parents in a long-term program. It's not just an overnight shelter but truly a transformational program to help families become self-sufficient."

In its master plan, VOA Mid-States shows the creation of several phases for this project. Aside from the family shelter, plans include the creation of affordable housing, an area for medical care, a community center and more.

She said LMPD will host its Police Activities League from the site and VOA Mid-States plans to move its headquarters from 4th and Chestnut streets to the Community Care Campus.

For a link to the master plan, click here.

Visualization of Volunteers of America Community Cares campus — Pictured: this image taken from the Volunteers of America Mid-States website shows a rendering of what the Community Care Campus will look like once it's complete.

"This is a way to care for those most vulnerable in our community and to do so in a way that really seeks to meets their needs in one location," Hancock said.

She said she would also like to see things like a restaurant or coffee shop on the campus.

"We don't just want to congregate folks who are dealing with the crisis of homelessness on one campus," she said. "We want this to be an inclusive community."

According to the plans, all of this will be constructed near the existing Hope Village, which is already helping get people off the streets.

But the VOA still needs to raise millions of dollars to ensure the project can be completed as imagined.

"We were delighted that the General Assembly invested $22.5 million into this campus," Hancock said. "We are still raising $15 million from the private sector to bring all these components to life."

The timeline on the VOA's website shows a completion date of 2026. Again, Hancock said the goal is to have the family shelter completed by the end of 2024.

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