ALEXANDRIA, VA — As homelessness remains a growing concern in Alexandria, shelter operator Carpenter’s Shelter will hold its most crucial fundraiser with participation from restaurants and the community.
This is the 20th year of the Carpenter’s Shelter Cook-Off. It will be held from 12 p.m. to 3 p.m. on Oct. 13 at The Birchmere, 3701 Mt. Vernon Avenue, Alexandria, VA. The fundraiser supports Carpenter’s Shelter’s work to run two homeless shelters and serve hundreds of unsheltered individuals and children.
“We are thrilled to have a chance to just gather with some of our core supporters. It’s a family friendly event,” Carpenter’s Shelter Executive Director Shannon Steene told Patch. “Anytime you bring together tastings from 20 restaurants, a few 100 of our nearest and dearest supporters, you’re certainly in for a good time.”
Find out what's happening in Old Town Alexandriawith free, real-time updates from Patch.
While the Cook-Off is first and foremost a fundraiser, it’s also a restaurant tasting event for attendees. Participating restaurants will offer tastes and compete for the critic’s choice awards for sweet and savory dishes as well as people’s choice and kid’s choice awards. Along with food, attendees will enjoy music, silent and live auctions, a raffle and more. This year, the fifth annual Val Hawkins Award will be presented to Alfred Street Baptist Church and its members for their dedication to Carpenter’s Shelter.
About 100 volunteers and 20 restaurants are needed to make the event successful, according to Steene. At least nine of those restaurant slots have been filled for this year’s event. Some of these include Hard Times Cafe, Nando’s Peri-Peri, Hen Quarter, The Majestic and The Warehouse.
Find out what's happening in Old Town Alexandriawith free, real-time updates from Patch.
Restaurants typically donate the food for the event, as ticket proceeds directly support Carpenter’s Shelter. Some local restaurants have participated in the fundraiser numerous times, according to Steene.
“It’s always heartening for me when I’m visiting a local restaurant and I will see one of the winner plaques on the walls, and it just makes me feel good to recognize one of the groups that has been a strong supporter of ours for a long period of time,” said Steene.
The event comes as homelessness is close to pre-pandemic levels. Carpenter’s Shelter serves more than 900 people through its various services, including 248 children, 67 families and 500 single adults.
Steene, who has overseen Carpenter’s Shelter since 2015, said homelessness “crept up” in the years before the pandemic. The point-in-time count done once each year throughout the region stood at around 200 before the pandemic. Numbers plummeted during the pandemic due to the eviction moratorium and other assistance.
“What it meant, though, in practical terms, was some people were living in apartments that they could no longer afford, but they couldn’t be evicted or asked to leave those particular units,” said Steene. “Once the eviction moratorium ended and some of the financial assistance programs ended, we started to see the number of people that were struggling with their housing really ticked back up this past year.”
Alexandria’s latest homelessness point-in-time count is close to the pre-pandemic number. Steene says Carpenter’s Shelter has a wait list for the family shelter and single women and men’s shelters.
To help unsheltered people get back on their feet, Steene says a combination of affordable housing, services and support are needed. It’s not only about getting them a suitable unit but also ensuring they can maintain stability.
“That that’s no small effort, especially when everyone that we’re working with helping them get rehoused as a demonstrated unsuccessful track record,” said Steene. “Everything has crumbled for them, and so through not only our staff, but our volunteers as well, the ability to breathe belief into those that we’re helping so that they really feel and believe that there is a better tomorrow for them, I think that’s the key piece.
As of late 2023, Carpenter’s Shelter has been running the Alexandria Community Shelter at 2355-B, Mill Road in the Carlyle neighborhood. The shelter operator was chosen after the City of Alexandria put out a request for proposals. The 64-bed year-round shelter has room for about six families, two dozen single men and a dozen single women at a time and is the location of a winter shelter. Steene says running two location has provided different approaches to running an emergency shelter, as the community shelter has more individuals and the other location has mainly families.
The other Carpenter’s Shelter location at 930 N Henry Street was reconstructed a few years back and serves about 14 families at a time. Above the reconstructed shelter, there is Housing Alexandria’s 97-unit affordable housing community called The Bloom at Braddock. Ten of those units are efficiency apartments set aside as permanent supportive housing for Carpenter’s Shelter guests. Steene says the guests in those 10 units have experienced chronic homelessness and pay an affordable rent while receiving Carpenter’s Shelter services.
For the other 87 units, Steene says there can be an affordability gap for unsheltered guests. He said the shelter guests on average make 30 percent of the area median income, but most of the affordable units are for households making 50 to 60 percent of area median income.
“Some of the people coming out of shelter have lived upstairs, and do live upstairs, but for some, they still need additional time to be increasing their earning power, increasing their incomes in order to be more stable and substantially,” said Steene.
That’s why skills development to increase earning power are one of Carpenter’s Shelter’s focuses. About half of the shelter guests already have income, but Steene says their income isn’t enough to have their own housing. Assistance is individualized to each person’s situation and can include developing workforce skills, doing mock interviews and working with the city’s workforce development center. Guests in pursuit of additional education or certification can be eligible for Lee Fifer Jr. Scholarships, named for a former Carpenter’s Shelter board member who died.
Click Here: United Kingdom Rugby Jersey
“This year, currently that we’re in, someone as a child had been in shelter, she is now pursuing her bachelor’s degree and applied for a scholarship, and we’ve provided some financial assistance to help make that happen,” said Steene. “Some people have come to us and they want help getting certified as a certified nurse’s assistant, or people want a commercial driver’s license in order to be able to earn.”
Get more information about Carpenter’s Shelter and its Cook-Off event here.
Get more local news delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for free Patch newsletters and alerts.