With homelessness on the rise in Brunswick, an event looks to raise awareness

Homelessness in Brunswick County has hit a high this year and with no current plans of a homeless shelter for individuals and families to go, families continue to sleep in cars, on couches and behind walls of trees.

A local nonprofit is raising awareness of local homelessness and encouraging residents to get uncomfortable by sleeping on driveways, backyards or in cars for a night.

Brunswick Partnership for Housing, inc. (BHP) is hosting its first ever Sleep Out Brunswick at 4 p.m. on Friday, Oct. 25. The fundraising event is paired with a 15-hour immersive Poverty Simulation and ends on Saturday, Oct. 26, at 10 a.m. Program participants will be sleeping outside, within the fences of the Cape Fear Regional Jetport, 4015 Airport Road in Southport.

Individuals who cannot attend the event can still participate “off-site” by housing with another family in a house too small, sleeping outside or leaving a light on while sleeping.

“Sleep Out Brunswick is designed to give people an opportunity to sleep out, like homeless people in our county do,” BPH Executive Director Sally Learned said.

During Sleep Out Brunswick, participants will also immerse themselves in a nationally recognized Poverty Simulation to figure out how to balance work, family and access to resources. The goal is to move the theoretical family to better financial stability by the end of the simulation.

County homelessness at a high

“In a rural county, it’s not like you’re going to see people sleeping on the sidewalk, so people don’t always see homelessness,” Learned said.

Brunswick County has a lot of families who experience homelessness through squeezing multiple families into one home that is too small or couch surfing, she said. Some families will even sleep in cars or recreational vehicles without utilities.

“Basically, at its core, [homelessness] is when somebody does not have a secure, stable, permanent residence,” Learned said.

BPH provides outreach, case management, resource connection, limited emergency shelter through motels and hotels to individuals and families experiencing homelessness.

Brunswick, New Hanover and Pender counties team up every January to perform a “point in time” count to get a rough estimate of how many people are experiencing homelessness in the area.

“That only captures a very small number of folks. … We will never know how many we have totally,” Learned said, noting BPH receives about 30 calls a month from new folks seeking help.

Not all individuals experiencing homelessness are part of the count because, she explained, individuals and families constantly on the move are not counted.

Brunswick County’s total point in time count for 2016 was 52, according to point in time data provided by Cape Fear Council of Governments Homeless Services Director Andrea Stough. The county's number bounced between 32 and 55 until 2022, when the number dropped to 18. The total then went back to 32 in 2023.

As of January, the point in time count hit 86. Of those 86, 52 individuals were unsheltered and 34 were in an emergency shelter, domestic violence shelter or BPH housing.

“The unsheltered count is those that literally were staying in a place not made for human habitation,” Stough said. “That could be a car, in the woods, an abandoned property, etc.”

The count was conducted in a more strategic and robust way in 2024, Stough said, which could have resulted in Brunswick County’s significant increase.

Stough said New Hanover County had an increase in overall homelessness as well but had a decrease in sheltered homeless. The decrease, she noted, is likely because Salvation Army is temporarily closed and the increase in unsheltered homelessness could be a result from having fewer shelter beds.

Lack of affordable housing making homelessness worse

There is some affordable housing in Brunswick County but wait times are long and affordability is increasing in cost.

Working families and single individuals cannot afford to live here, Learned said. Local apartment complexes with rental assistance have lengthy wait times that could take around two-to-three years before a unit is available, she explained.

She said the blame falls on the county.

“There has been very little political will – I’m not mincing my words on this anymore – to do a homeless shelter or to do affordable housing development,” Learned said.

Much like affordable-priced apartments in Brunswick County, Learned said New Hanover and Pender counties are experiencing the same housing problem.

Homeless shelters in Wilmington are full and have waiting lists too, she added. “So, our Brunswick folks cannot go to another county.”

Asked about placing people in homeless shelters in South Carolina, Learned said the option in North Myrtle Beach closed during the pandemic. “And they’ve just stayed full since then,” she noted.

BPH prioritizes families with children, elderly individuals, people with health needs or persons fleeing domestic violence, she said. Though others need help, the executive director explained BHP does not have enough funds to help healthy single men and women experiencing homelessness.

“Without a shelter, it’s a problem," she said. "We wouldn’t have to do that if we had a shelter."

What it would take to create a homeless shelter

The county needs a homeless shelter but where would it go and what does it take to build one?

A majority of individuals and families BPH help are working in local restaurants and in the service industry, Learned said. Businesses, she added, are also having difficulty with hiring people because employee candidates cannot find housing they can afford.

If the county decides to build a homeless shelter, Learned said it will need to be built on commercially-zoned property in a central location near food and transportation – so not Bolivia.

Learned said BPH and other resources are trying to find ways to meet needs of folks without doing a costly shelter or getting into “that battle” with communities. “Because not in my backyard is a serious problem when you start talking shelters,” she said.

Asked if one shelter would be enough, Learned said it depends the design and function of the shelter.

“It’s not easy in a rural county,” she noted.

Land must be bought, a building must be built and funding for continuous operation needs to be included. A 24-hour shelter requires staff, around-the-clock resources and possibly some security.

The executive director said a shelter, if built, would require separation of families from individual men and women.

“You have to look at who you are going to serve, and you can’t just mix everybody,” Learned added, noting families will stay aware from homeless shelters to keep their families safe.

BPH receives a lot of calls from individuals in Leland and Shallotte but, Learned explained, much of the unsheltered families are located in Southport, Oak Island, Bolivia and near Supply. “But those folks tend to have transportation,” she added.

Other avenues to help

Some other options the county can look at include building a night and/or day shelter or working with churches to open their doors as warming or cooling shelters when temperatures become health hazardous for people without a home.

Providing safe places for people to park and sleep is also a way to help, Learned noted. It is often, she said, law enforcement will move people sleeping their cars every two hours and sometimes push them onto dark, unsafe areas.

“Right now, most of the municipalities have made it illegal to park and sleep in public areas and so they’ve criminalized homelessness in that regard,” she said. “It just adds problems on to being homeless.”

Sleep Out Brunswick may not decrease the homeless population in Brunswick County but it will increase awareness and funds to help individuals and families experiencing homelessness.

The goal is to raise $60,000 through Sleep Out Brunswick and over $38,000 has already been donated as of Oct. 17.

Savanna Tenenoff covers Brunswick County for the StarNews. Reach her at stenenoff@gannett.com .

This article originally appeared on Wilmington StarNews: With homelessness on the rise in Brunswick, an event looks to raise awareness