Sharonda Poindexter-Rose is a 24-year-old single mother who works as a server at a local restaurant. She lives in a one-bedroom home, and as she’s looked for a two-bedroom place over the last several months, she’s discovered a harsh reality. “It is so expensive out here, it’s ridiculous,” says Poindexter-Rose. In the last six years, […]
Charlottesville City Council moved a step closer last week to launching the most comprehensive study ever undertaken in Virginia on the role race plays in the criminal justice system. The city was recently awarded a $90,000 grant from the Virginia Department of Human Services to begin collecting data on the rate that African-American adults enter […]
A group of Friendship Court residents is pushing back against redevelopment plans, calling for more inclusion as developers move forward with attempts to revamp downtown Charlottesville’s largest subsidized housing neighborhood. The Piedmont Housing Alliance announced last fall that it was purchasing the property with 150 low-income units in 2018 and was transforming it into a large-scale, […]
Author’s note: With race at the heart of this story, an editorial decision was made to identify every person’s race in this piece. This may appear jarring or unnecessary to readers, but the aim is to be fair in our descriptions of people and, more so, to draw attention to racial conceptions and how they […]
Residents of Westhaven, which has one of the highest violent crime rates in the city, have started to see a more constant police presence in their neighborhood over the last month—at the same time a nonprofit is teaching kids their rights in police encounters. Charlottesville Police officers assigned to the housing project have gotten new […]
Last year, George Davis was struggling to make ends meet. The 47-year-old was working as much as possible as a private home care attendant, landscaper and maintenance man. But the work wasn’t steady, and he didn’t always get his paychecks on time. “The money wasn’t what I needed to sustain my rent or food costs,” […]
This month Charlottesville will move one step closer to eliminating homelessness as a coalition of service providers begins to house at least 33 of the most critically homeless people in the area. The initiative is being funded in part by $255,000 from the city and has three main components that complement a bevy of new […]
I find Floyd sitting with his 26-year-old son, Robert, under a tree near the intersection of Hydraulic Road and the 250 Bypass. He’s wearing a dark blue Earlysville Fire Station sweatshirt, but Floyd’s not a firefighter. He’s been homeless and panhandling in the area for more than five years. You’ve probably seen him. He’s 60 […]
In May 2012, Barbara Fitch had no savings account, a battered credit score, and a lavish shoe buying habit. She had racked up hefty debt and was trapped in a high-rate loan for a used car, even though she was bringing in a steady paycheck as the catering sales manager at the Inn at Darden, […]
Charlottesville’s fight against unemployment has a new crusader in town. Seated in the city’s new Downtown Job Center, Cory Demchak can be found busily at work in his underground lair in the basement of the public library on Market Street. Demchak mans the just-opened one-stop shop for residents looking for a new job, a better […]