(From left) CARITAS CEO Karen Stanley and interior designer Stevie McFadden at the new center on Stockton Street (Photo by Jay Paul)
With graffiti-littered walls and dusty floors, the former Philip Morris USA blended leaf tobacco plant on Richmond’s South Side still has a long way to go before it opens mid-year as the new CARITAS Center.
The foundations had been laid, and every part of the building had been planned out, but it was still a hard-hat construction zone when Richmond magazine took a tour in the fall through the space, weaving through wooden pillars. CARITAS Chief Executive Officer Karen Stanley, Marketing and Communications Manager Megan Wilson and interior designer Stevie McFadden of Flourish Spaces led the way through wide spaces that had been sectioned off for individual rooms and spaces designated for each of the organization’s programs, which help people overcome homelessness and addiction.
Incorporated in 1987, CARITAS originally stood for Congregations Around Richmond Involved To Assure Shelter. Its acronym is a Latin word meaning charity, or love for all people. The nonprofit stemmed from an early 1980s volunteer effort called Winter Cots, in which churches and synagogues in downtown Richmond provided shelter, beds and blankets to those in need during the cold months.
Since then, CARITAS’ programs have expanded to include recovery assistance, a furniture bank, career preparation and job training services, as well as a shelter for men that opened in March 2018. Combined, the organization’s programs serve more than 4,000 people per year, Wilson says.
Through 2019, CARITAS continued to partner with Richmond-area congregations that each provide a week’s worth of shelter for women. That arrangement will end when the new center, which will feature a women’s shelter, opens. (Families in need of shelter are referred through a Homeless Crisis Line to other services such as Home Again, Housing Families First and the Salvation Army.)
After being unused for 20 years, the 150,000-square-foot facility on Stockton Street will become the hub for CARITAS’ programs, now operating in several different locations.
“This is an efficient chance to get everybody under one roof,” says McFadden, a CARITAS volunteer and former board member.
McFadden says one of the goals of the $27.9 million renovation is to keep some elements of the midcentury facility in order to showcase the building’s old and new history.
“We would like to keep some of the old broken parts of it,” she says, “because there’s beauty in the brokenness.”
Graffiti will be preserved in some areas, such as a mural in the cafeteria/lounge.
“Some of the graffiti is really beautiful,” Stanley says. “But not all of it is appropriate, so we want to preserve some parts and leave out others.”
Another section of the facility that will be revitalized is an old slurry pot used for tobacco production. The top of the pot will be converted into a lounge area for clients.
“So much of the design is making it beautiful, but also giving the clients a sense of ownership,” McFadden says. “It was a question of ‘How do we create a design to help them take advantage of these resources?’ ”
When completed, the center will include a women’s shelter; a 160-bed peer-based recovery program called The Healing Place for Women; the CARITAS Works Program; warehouse space for the Furniture Bank and Clothes Bank; 47 sober-living apartments for program graduates and qualifying community members; CARITAS administrative offices; and leased office space for community partners. The new facility will also include lounges, a television room, a cafeteria, a chapel/spiritual room and a courtyard. The Healing Place for Men is located nearby on Dinwiddie Avenue, along with the men’s shelter.
A former tobacco plant on Richmond’s South Side will become a hub for CARITAS’ programs. (Image courtesy CARITAS)
McFadden says the integration of lounges and spiritual rooms is to make the center feel more uplifting and wholesome. “We want it to feel like a supportive and welcoming place, not institutional,” she says.
For its Furniture Bank, CARITAS works with organizations such as the American Red Cross and Safe Harbor that refer clients who can pick up items such as beds, couches and tables free of cost. At the Clothes Bank, clients can receive business attire for job interviews to prepare them to reenter the workforce.
“The people living in the sober living apartments will have jobs, so they’ll be able to pay rent,” Stanley says. “That’s another way we will fund the facility.”
CARITAS bought the building for $1.5 million in 2017, according to city tax records. Thanks to substantial donations and a $16 million package of historic and community development tax credits arranged through SunTrust Community Capital and the National Trust Community Investment Corp, the CARITAS Center will be able to be completed debt-free.
By 2022, the new CARITAS Center is expected to provide 2,000 intensive recovery education classes and 247,020 meals; supply $1.6 million worth of furniture; and graduate 200 CARITAS Works participants, based on estimates.
“Our defining mission is to restore dignity,” Stanley says. “Because they deserve it.”
