Homeless shelter contract delay worries Key West officials

BY PRU SOWERS

KONK LIFE STAFF WRITER

An unexpected delay in receiving a formal proposal to take over the Keys Overnight Temporary Shelter (KOTS) has Key West City officials thinking about putting the project out to bid.

City commissioners voted last October to begin contract talks with the Southernmost Homeless Assistance League (SHAL) on a proposed 10-year, non-compete contract to manage the overnight homeless shelter on Stock Island. SHAL, a local non-profit organization dedicated to helping homeless men and women find permanent housing, currently handles the day-to-day shelter operations and had proposed that it – not the city – foot the bill to build a new shelter required under the terms of an earlier lawsuit. But SHAL is still pulling together cost estimates for the project and city officials are getting impatient.

“We were told this was the quickest way to move this forward and it is month six,” Commissioner Sam Kaufman, who voted against the proposed deal with SHAL in October, said at the March 7 commission meeting. Kaufman then proposed that the Finance Department prepare estimates on what it would cost the city to take over building the new shelter and managing the operation.

City Manager Jim Scholl also expressed concern at how long it is taking SHAL to pull together its proposal. He worried that cost estimates from contractors are coming in higher than SHAL anticipated, possibly putting the project at risk. Previous city estimates on the cost to build a new shelter hovered around $1.2 million and there had been no consensus on where that money would come from. But SHAL Executive Director John Miller told commissioners in October that his organization would pay to install eight Quonset-style huts on the city-owned College Road property, each hut housing 20 beds, for $12,000 per hut or approximately $92,000. In return, Key West would agree to a 10-year contract with SHAL and pay the organization $54,000 a month to cover SHAL’s operating costs. Currently, Key West pays $44,000 a month to SHAL for shelter operations.

“They [SHAL] are having a hard time getting all the numbers they need. It’s taking longer than expected,” Scholl said. “We need to agree our patience is expiring. It’s worn pretty thin.”

Reached by phone after the commission meeting, Miller said it has taken longer than expected to finish the proposal, which will include final construction costs. He said the designated building, the former Easter Seals building on College Road, has been empty for several years and, as a result, it was hard to get contractors scheduled to visit the site and prepare their construction estimates. Also, the design for the new shelter had to be finalized before any estimates could be solicited.

“It’s complicated,” Miller said of the project. “And we didn’t realize we had a hard and fast deadline. But we’re going to get it done.”

Scholl said he wants to receive a formal contract by Thursday, March 16. That is the deadline for putting the issue on the March 21 commission meeting agenda. If SHAL doesn’t meet that deadline, Scholl said he will consider putting the project out to bid.

“I’ll sit down with staff and say, ‘where are we,’” Scholl said, describing what will happen if SHAL misses the deadline. “They [SHAL] certainly appeared to be more prepared to move forward at the time than where we are now. As one of my old bosses used to always say, hope is not a strategy.”

City officials have been struggling with where to move and how to pay for a new shelter for over four years, well past the original deadline set by the court in a lawsuit against the shelter brought by owners of the next-door Sunset Marina. Funding for the new homeless facility is likely to still be an issue as well. Although SHAL says the city’s current $44,000 a month cost will drop to $27,000 under its proposal, that assumes Monroe County Commissioners agree to splitting the $54,000 monthly payment SHAL is requesting. Currently, the city pays the monthly operations cost and the county provides the land for the shelter, which is located on county-owned property next to the Monroe County Sheriff’s Department. Now that the shelter will be located on city-owned land, there is no indication whether county officials would contribute cash to the operation.

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