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Thursday, March 28, 2024

Machen, commissioners will attempt to save indebted Grace Marketplace

As homeless shelter Grace Marketplace struggles with a crippling $15,000 monthly deficit just months after its summer launch, county and city commissioners and even UF President Bernie Machen are looking for ways to keep the shelter’s doors open. 

Machen applied to join the Grace Marketplace oversight board and was appointed Wednesday afternoon, said Alachua County Commissioner Robert “Hutch” Hutchinson. 

“The fact that he could serve on any board of directors for any organization and the fact that he applied to serve on the oversight committee for Grace Marketplace tells you where his heart is,” said Hutchinson, who also serves on the board.

Machen could not be reached for comment.  

He joins Hutchinson and others who are looking to alleviate a deficit caused by insufficient funding. 

The shelter, which opened in May and is situated at the former Gainesville Correctional Institution, was allocated $308,000 — about $150,000 each from the city and Alachua County. 

Jon DeCarmine, operations director for the Alachua County Coalition for the Homeless and Hungry, said that money was originally intended for a one-building homeless shelter project. 

Instead, the project grew to a 25-acre campus across six buildings.

But the money didn’t grow with it. The shelter now needs about $500,000.

DeCarmine said in utility costs alone, the shelter projected $2,000 a month and is instead paying about $7,000.

Overall, $25,000 was budgeted in utilities per year, but utility costs for the next fiscal year are projected at $96,000.

In order to cut back, the shelter reduced staffing by 20 percent and installed programmable thermostats. About a dozen staffers remain, with one or two working at any given time, he said.

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The campus chapel closed Oct. 1, and the pavilion, which was open all day and night, is now closed from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m.

“We have gone to a bare-bones maintenance program where we put off repairing things as long as we possibly can,” DeCarmine said. 

He said the shelter is now relying heavily on community agencies and churches to donate food and services to keep it running. 

Local 3-D software company Paracosm is hosting a Battle of the Bands event with other businesses Nov. 22 at The Backyard at Boca Fiesta and Palomino, said Paracosm spokeswoman Julie Natheney. The company hopes to raise about $2,000 for the shelter. 

“A big motivation for Paracosm is that we want to inspire other people in the tech community to contribute to more local causes,” said Natheney. 

At the county level, Hutchison has been working to increase funding for the project. He plans to ask for an additional $100,000 to $150,000 at the Nov. 18 county commission meeting. 

The money would be taken from county funds left over after the fiscal year ended on Sept. 30. 

He said the issue has grown because leaders failed to ask the right questions when the project was created. 

“We’ve allowed the problem to get so bad that in a sense we’ve created the deficit over a decade of not dealing with the issue,” Hutchinson said. 

Alachua County spends $2 million a year sheltering dogs and cats, and the nonprofit sector in the county spends an additional $2 million, he said.  By comparison, the money that is being asked for to help keep Grace Marketplace open is only a fraction of the county’s costs. 

“It’s just a question of what we as a society make a priority,” Hutchinson said. “I think it’s ridiculous that we make people sleep outside.”

[A version of this story ran on page 5 on 10/17/2014]

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