WHITE RIVER JUNCTION — A year after its proposal to build a homeless shelter on Hartford Avenue was derailed, Upper Valley Haven is now sounding out neighbors about locating the shelter in the former “25,000 Gifts” building on North Main Street.

Haven Executive Director Michael Redmond characterized the project as still in an “exploratory phase.” The Haven held two neighborhood meetings at the Bugbee Senior Center this past week to broach the idea and solicit feedback from nearby residents and businesses.

The vacant building, which last served as nonprofit Listen’s used furniture store, is located at the “gateway” to downtown White River Junction, which is still identified by many longtime denizens as the former 25,000 Gifts & Woolens store, which closed in 2006.

The Haven’s proposal to build a “low-barrier” homeless shelter on its existing campus was met with opposition from neighbors and was ultimately rejected by the Hartford Zoning Board of Adjustment.

Redmond said demand for an emergency shelter that people can access straight off the street has only grown more acute since then.

“There’s still a need for this type of program,” Redmond said. “The evidence is in the number of people every day who ask us for housing, who don’t have a place to stay.”

He predicted there will be an increase in unhoused people this summer as programs launched during the pandemic to house people in motels wind down.

The former Listen property is owned by arts educator CraftStudies, which bought the 8,400-square-foot building and 4.5-acre lot from Listen for $290,000 in 2021. CraftStudies, which formerly was located on Lebanon Street in Hanover, had planned to relocate into the building but instead opted to lease space in the former Kibby Equipment building on Maple Street across from Hartford Town Hall.

That created an opening for Redmond to approach CraftStudies with the possibility of acquiring the property for the purpose of the shelter.

Redmond said converting the structure into a homeless shelter will involve “a total gut rehab,” although based on what he knows at this time, tearing it down and building anew will not be necessary.

“It’s got good hardwood floors, and the basement is dry,” he said.

A low-barrier shelter is open to anyone in need of a bed, including those with active addictions, Redmond explained. Other shelters have a “coordinated entry list” for individual who are vetted and are participating in a sobriety program if they have an addiction.

The open-door policy at the new shelter was one of the issues among neighbors who opposed the Haven’s original proposal, which was close to Hartford High School and a residential subdivision.

“You could be inebriated, you could be high, but it still requires you need to abide by go-along-to-get-along,” Redmond said of a low-barrier shelter. “Our experience is people don’t want to lose the opportunity, so things go pretty well.”

Unlike last year, this time Redmond is taking the temperature of nearby residents and businesses before beginning a formal review process with the town’s zoning board. He acknowledged not doing so last year was a mistake.

“We took that to heart,” Redmond said.

One hopeful advantage Redmond cites in the new location is that there are considerably fewer residences along that stretch of North Main Street, which the town recently rezoned for multi-family dwellings. The location also is on an Advance Transit bus route and close to other resources people relying on the shelter might want to access, such as the VA hospital and the Haven’s facility on Hartford Avenue.

As conceived, the shelter would seek to accommodate about 20 individuals. The sleeping area would consist of beds or cots separated by partitions to ensure privacy that would have a small table and phone charging port. There would be shower facilities and offices for staff — likely two people, one for the afternoon and evening shift and another for the overnight shift.

The Haven sent postcards to nearby residents alerting them to the two meetings this past week at Bugbee Senior Center. The first meeting drew only three people and the second one drew seven, a disappointing turnout that Redmond attributed to “some challenges at the post office in delivering them.”

Two additional “listening sessions” regarding the shelter project have been added for June 5 and June 6 at the Bugbee Center and will be “open to the anyone interested,” Redmond said.

Meetings also are in the works with the Bugbee Center board, Hartford school officials and downtown White River Junction businesses.

One question Redmond said he is often asked is why the Haven, which serves northern Windsor County and Orange County, believes it important to locate the shelter in Hartford.

“Why aren’t you doing it in Hanover or Norwich, or if people are living farther away why don’t you go where they are?” Redmond said has been a recurring question.

“The honest answer is Hartford is where the largest number of people are, where the services are and where we are,” Redmond answered. “We think Hartford can be the model for how to do this well, and if we find a location that is right, it can be an asset to the community.”

Contact John Lippman at jlippman@vnews.com.

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