Sami Popovich, Deputy Chief Administrative Officer for Human Services, presented the city’s winter shelter and related homeless‑services updates to the Education & Human Services Committee.

Popovich said the inclement‑weather shelter will open nightly from Nov. 15 through April 15 at the Salvation Army, operating 5 p.m. to 8 a.m. and providing 106 adult beds. Extended daytime inclement‑weather shelter hours will be activated when the temperature remains at or below 40 degrees after 8 a.m., or when there is an accumulation of freezing rain or snow of 1 inch within a 24‑hour period. If the Salvation Army shelter reaches 85 percent capacity and the forecasted overnight temperature is below 32 degrees, the city will activate an overflow shelter at Caritas with an additional 60 beds; Popovich described further surge thresholds used to extend daytime operations.

Popovich also said the Office of Homeless Services is coordinating a collaborative process with family‑serving partners to assess and intervene with unsheltered families this winter and will brief the committee again before Nov. 15.

On funding risks, Popovich reported uncertainty from a partial federal shutdown: SNAP and TANF benefits for October were distributed, but November distributions were uncertain; fuel‑assistance and WIC funding were also at risk depending on ongoing federal actions. In the Continuum of Care (CoC) arena, Popovich said leaked HUD planning documents indicate possible cuts that could reduce rapid rehousing and permanent supportive housing resources for the Richmond CoC — she said permanent supportive housing accounts for a large share of current CoC funding and that a substantial reduction could jeopardize help for roughly the number of households currently served by those programs. Popovich said local providers drew down some federal funds in September to carry operations for a few weeks; the largest CoC grantee, SupportWorks, was able to pay October rent obligations.

On a positive note, Popovich described last weekend’s “Falling for the Culture” gun‑violence prevention kickoff in Gilpin, held with Mount Moriah Church and city partners, and said the city will present a fuller gun‑violence prevention briefing to the committee at a future meeting.

Committee members asked for additional briefings and scheduled the committee to receive further gun‑violence prevention updates in November.