County aims to open homeless family shelter on Gurney Lane

By Cathy DeDe, Chronicle Managing Editor

The Warren County Board of Supervisors will hold a public hearing engaging the not-for-profit WAIT House to run its first shelter for homeless families in the currently unused County Building 11 at 48-50 Gurney Lane in Queensbury.

The hearing is part of the supervisors meeting agenda on Friday, July 18, at 10 a.m. at the County Municipal Center.

The renovated facility is expected to provide housing for two or three families, County Administrator John Taflan tells The Chronicle.

“We are awaiting State guidance on the exact number we can house there,” from the Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance (ODTA), he said.

The County’s Department of Social Services currently has 16 families in temporary housing at hotels and motels.

Queensbury Town Supervisor John Strough told The Chronicle after an earlier committee discussion on the project, “It’s at least a start,” to house some families in a supported, home-like shelter setting rather than in motels.

WAIT House in Glens Falls offers temporary housing for pregnant and parenting teenaged and young adult mothers with their infants, but not family units.

WAIT House Director Jason McLaughlin tells The Chronicle, “The proposed shelter…is intended to fill that critical gap by providing emergency housing and wraparound services for families experiencing homelessness, with the goal of maintaining family unity…

“Our vision…emphasizes stabilization, family preservation and quick connections to permanent housing.”

OTDA will also provide all funding for the renovation, Mr. Taflan said. “WAIT House personnel will be on site 24/7,” he said. “Under the agreement, there is no rent payment to Warren County.”

Friday’s hearing is to allow the County to bypass the legal bidding process of public auction to the highest bidder, citing its use by the WAIT House “for the benefit of the county…to operate a homeless family shelter on behalf of the Warren County Department of Social Services.”

The building, once a county juvenile detention home, is located next to the Warren County Historical Society and was recently eyed by it for the proposed Joseph Warren Museum and Education Center honoring the County namesake, a Revolutionary-era Founding Father who was killed at Bunker Hill.

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