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Residents press Portsmouth council on shelter timeline and gift-card program value
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Summary
During public comment, resident advocates urged the council to expand shelter capacity and accelerate a permanent shelter timeline; another speaker raised concerns about the practical redeemable value of recently distributed $100 gift cards and urged the city to address usability issues.
Two residents used the public-comment period to press the council on pressing social needs.
GW Thompson III, a volunteer with Portsmouth Volunteers for the Homeless, urged council to expand shelter capacity and asked whether the city has a timeline for construction of a permanent shelter. Thompson said existing emergency and inclement-weather partnerships are valuable but that a permanent facility is needed to ensure safety and dignity for people sleeping outdoors. He asked council to add a permanent-shelter timeline to a future agenda and stressed the urgency as winter approaches.
Leon Hammonds, a resident of Bowie Court, thanked the city for the gift-card distribution program but said the cards do not carry their face value in some redemption circumstances. "Right now, my figure is that each one of the $100 ... is not worth no more than $25," Hammonds said, and urged the city to sit down with manager staff to determine the practical value recipients receive.
City Manager Steven Carter and staff earlier reported that a partner (named in the meeting as "Plan U") was distributing a program of $100 cards to residents, that 1,689 cards were part of the program and that the city was tracking distributions. Carter said he anticipated the program would wrap up by year-end. Council did not take formal action on either public comment item during the meeting.
