Salisbury staff outline $95,000 housing-first support, warn Anne Street needs $20,000 operating and $350K–$400K rebuild

Salisbury City Council staff said the city will continue subsidizing a long-running permanent-supportive housing program for 11 households with a $95,000 budget transfer from the general fund and asked the council to fund at least $20,000 in operating costs for the Anne Street facility, while warning the site’s bathroom unit needs full replacement.

City Housing and Community Development staff used the council’s budget review to explain that the Housing First model in question holds 11 individuals who entered under an earlier permanent-supportive approach and that the city has been covering the portion of rent not paid by tenants. “HUD doesn’t provide any funding for that,” Housing and Home Business Manager Christine Chestnut said, describing how federal funding priorities have shifted from permanent-supportive housing to rapid rehousing.

Those program costs are tracked in a grant-style account (account 10530) and staff said the $95,000 will be funded by a transfer from the general fund. Staff also asked the council to consider a separate $20,000 operating request for Anne Street to cover utilities and maintenance; staff said winter energy bills for the site can reach $1,500 to $2,000 a month.

Nut graf: The presentation clarified two funding needs that will affect the city’s budget decisions: continuing payments for a small group of long-term tenants in a legacy program, and capital and operating choices at a city-managed shelter site that staff say is not accessible and needs replacement.

City staff described steps already taken to streamline departmental finances, including consolidating small line items (summons servers, graffiti removal, boarding, rubbish removal) into one account and moving several licensing and permitting functions to the OpenGov platform. “We’re consolidating that into 1 account to simplify,” one staff member said, explaining the migration to a single case-management and payment platform for code enforcement, landlord licensing and homeless-services casework.

On the Housing First/permanent-supportive program, Chestnut said the program began around 2016 and most residents have been housed there since the start. She told the council the program is not accepting new participants; the current residents “have been there for about 9 years” and rely on the subsidy because their incomes are very low. Chestnut said staff are working to ensure residents pay the expected 30 percent of their income toward rent by the end of the fiscal year and to place eligible residents on waiting lists for other subsidized housing options where feasible.

Council members pressed staff on how quickly residents could be moved into other housing and on coordination with the housing authority and other providers. Chestnut and other staff warned that local subsidized-housing wait lists are long—often three years—and that some funding sources cannot be used at the Anne Street site because of a nearby brownfield site that requires EPA remediation before certain federal funds (for example, CDBG) can be used within the restricted radius.

Staff said replacing the Anne Street bathroom—currently a trailer-like unit they described as inaccessible and repeatedly prone to plumbing clogs—would require removing and rebuilding some units and would likely cost in the range of $350,000 to $400,000. “The only way to fix that situation is to replace that,” staff said, noting structural constraints make an accessible retrofit unworkable. While replacement would address accessibility concerns, staff warned, building a new facility also raises questions about sustainable operations and ongoing monthly support.

Council members and staff also discussed barriers to housing placements: landlord screening (past judgments or liens), limited shelter capacity across the region since the COVID-19 pandemic, and reduced federal funding in recent years. Staff noted the city has two employees assigned to these programs on the regular HCDD budget and that some smaller grant accounts previously used for outreach are no longer available.

Ending: Council members asked staff to add the Anne Street bathroom replacement to the discussion list for later budget deliberations and to continue outreach to housing providers and the housing authority; no formal vote or ordinance was taken during this discussion.