Cumberland County commissioners voted 5-1 on Oct. 19 to direct staff to identify up to five alternative locations for the county's long-delayed Unhoused Support Center, leaving the project without a confirmed address nearly three years after it was first announced. The vote means the facility, designed to offer temporary housing and support services for people experiencing homelessness, still has no construction start date or opening date.
A Project Stuck Since Last Fall
The commissioners' latest action builds on a decision they made in October 2025, when they directed staff to identify alternative locations after residents objected to placing the shelter near a school, according to CityView. The originally planned site, 344 Hawley Lane, sits beside the building that once housed Pauline Jones Elementary School, per CityView's reporting. County commissioner Heather Skeens said on Oct. 15 that one concern was the possibility of a registered sex offender staying at a center near an operating school, while commissioner Marshall Faircloth said there was insufficient evidence to justify locating the center next to a school. The Cumberland County school board had separately decided to move Ramsey Street High School students into the Hawley Lane school building for the 2026-27 school year.
The project traces back to a groundbreaking ceremony held in February 2024, and before that to its first public announcement in 2022, as reported by the Fayetteville Observer. The county has also previously weighed sites near the Food Lion shopping center on Eastern Boulevard and south of downtown toward the Massey Hill community, CityView reported. One community member, Veronica Jones, suggested building near the Fayetteville Cares Day Resource Center off Person Street near Eastern Boulevard — a facility CityView notes is not an overnight shelter but helps homeless people with basic needs, employment, medical care and housing services.
One Commissioner's Lone Dissent
Commissioner Glenn Adams cast the lone vote against identifying alternative locations, saying he wanted the center to remain at Hawley Lane and noting he had voted against moving the center from that site in every vote since the project began. Adams said the county had already spent two years examining alternate sites and was now considering locations outside Fayetteville, even though most of the homeless population is centralized in the city. He argued barriers such as trees could block off the school from the center, and said the board should either choose Hawley Lane or reject it outright rather than continue in limbo.
Adams added that the only part of the motion he liked was the provision to keep examining Hawley Lane, and said the center would have been completed by now had the board stuck with the original site. He said he still hoped the project could ultimately be finished. Commissioner Kirk Deviere said, per the Raleigh News & Observer, that county staff had conducted due diligence on several alternate sites but found none suitable.
What the Board Actually Approved
Beyond identifying up to five new sites, the commissioners directed staff to obtain special-use requirements from Fayetteville and the Cumberland County Board of Education for the Hawley Lane site, keeping that option technically alive even as the broader search widens. They also directed staff to pursue another construction plan using the board-approved design through a request for information, and to identify existing county-owned buildings that might work instead of new construction. Staff are expected to present the results at the board's Nov. 12 agenda session.
The project has already completed its design development phase. Plans call for 24,000 square feet and 100 beds, broken down as 53 beds for men, 28 for women, 18 for families and one isolation bed, according to CityView's reporting, though another CityView account described the facility as a 24-hour shelter that could have up to 157 beds with laundry facilities and showers; the two bed-count figures have not been reconciled publicly. The estimated cost remains $17 million. Completion was originally targeted for December 2027, though the project is now anticipated to wrap in early 2028 — and a separate CityView report described county plans to open by the end of 2027, underscoring how fluid the timeline has become.
County officials have said the shelter will not accept registered sex offenders. North Carolina law restricts where registered sex offenders may live near schools and day care centers, including a 1,000-foot residency restriction tied to school property lines, according to the North Carolina General Assembly. The full scope of how that law would apply to the proposed center has not been independently established.
Why the Gap Matters Now
The stalled timeline carries real weight because the Salvation Army's Pathway to Hope shelter was closed for roughly nine months. The Salvation Army's Pathway to Hope shelter, the county's only shelter serving women and families, abruptly closed on April 15, 2025, per CityView's reporting, before reopening in January 2026. Commissioners responded in May by voting to allocate up to $563,000 annually to the Salvation Army for shelter operations, and the board has since extended its contract with the Salvation Army for one additional year, with a maximum cost of $1 million. Cumberland County also entered an interlocal agreement with the city of Fayetteville in June to jointly fund year-round emergency shelter services operated by the Salvation Army.
The Salvation Army shelter, located on Alexander Street in Fayetteville, is open seven days a week and offers 60 beds nightly, with an additional 50 beds available during winter months, white flag operations and temporary emergency shelter services.
