Sheldon Mitchell, director of Urban Ministries of Durham, is stepping down after a decade of fighting homelessness in the city. 

UMD is Durham’s primary public homeless shelter, offering shelter to nearly 850 people each year. The nonprofit also provides food and clothing to about 6,000 community members each year, serving three meals a day, 365 days of the year. 

Mitchell has seen the nonprofit through the pandemic, funding cuts, conversations about creating the city’s strategic plan to end homelessness, and the impending addition of a day shelter to UMD’s services, which will provide basic needs and job support programs to homeless Durhamites. It’s been a heavy but rewarding role for Mitchell, who will step down on May 1 to take on a new job as CEO of Big Brothers, Big Sisters of the Triangle. 

Mitchell sat down with the INDY to discuss how the issue of homelessness has evolved over the last decade, lessons learned during the pandemic, and what the community can do to help reduce homelessness in Durham. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Sheldon Mitchell Credit: Courtesy of the subject

INDY: Overall, do you think homelessness has improved, worsened, or stayed the same since you started?

Mitchell: I definitely think it’s worsened. There’s a number of things we can look at—the impact from the pandemic to economic crises that may have occurred—but then, also, we just continue to see a standing increase as relates to individuals who are impacted by substance abuse, addictions, or untreated mental health.

What do you think is the most impactful thing Durham could do to get more people out of homelessness?

We know it takes resources, and you definitely have to be willing to commit the necessary resources to really solve the problem or lessen the problem. The community strategic plan to end homelessness would be a great example of how the community has come together to really identify needs, to identify gaps, create priority. The next part of that is to live up, to commit the funding necessary to be able to accomplish those goals that have been established.

What do you think readers who have never struggled with homelessness don’t understand about what people are going through or the complexity of tackling this issue?

I think they should know that every situation is different. There’s a host of reasons why people are homeless. And that many of us, although we may not want to believe it, may not be that far away from getting to a situation where you can end up homeless or in need. I think that’s a big point because I just remember before I started working at Urban Ministries, I maybe had some inaccurate stereotypes or thoughts about why people become homeless. But you quickly learn that people definitely come from all walks of life, all demographics, all social economic situations, but things happen, and you just have to meet people where they are and support them to try to right themselves and get back on track.

Is there one thing that happened that made you reevaluate your stereotypes of that, or was it just something over your course of working with Urban Ministries? 

It was really just over the course, right? You see the different people that come through, you learn the different stories of individuals that come through, and you are just like, “Wow, every story has a different twist.” 

If you have a professional that may be dealing with addiction, [that] causes them to lose their job, and maybe they’ve damaged their family connections; they fall into homelessness. You see older people that come through sometimes, that may have been well-educated, held good positions, but things happen where somebody takes advantage of them; they end up losing resources, and then get into a state of homelessness. The individuals with untreated mental health, just lots of different stories come to mind of the people that I’ve encountered or that we’ve served during my time. 

What’s the biggest thing Urban Ministries has accomplished during your time there? 

So many different things that come to mind. Probably one of the biggest things that we were able to accomplish, I would say, is just surviving the pandemic. 

During that time, we had to move all of our residents out. We set up new housing and shelters at three different hotels across the community during the pandemic, and we were able to make those transitions, gain appropriate staffing, continue to house people, feed people during that time, without really any significant incident. I think that was huge because we did that for about two-and-a-half years. That was a huge undertaking, just for us to be able to respond in that way, be flexible enough, coordinated enough to put that together.

You’ve mentioned the pandemic as this obstacle that you guys were able to overcome, but also kind of a contributor to worsening the overall situation of homelessness in Durham. Can you tell me a little bit more about what toll the pandemic took on your team, your services?

First off, it was just, it was tiring, right? Every other day or every other week, there will be something different that would come out, and you’d have to adjust your operations or figure out a new way to accommodate or respond to some type of change with protocol during that time. That was really tough on staff, but people were able to hold together and to do those things. 

We use a lot of volunteers. Oftentimes a lot of people that volunteer to assist us really fell into the age gap where they were more [vulnerable] during that time, and so people stopped volunteering because they were trying to protect their own health. We saw a deep decline in volunteers. People have returned in significant ways, but we still haven’t reached the pre-pandemic levels of participation. 

We also had to alter our services because our services were no longer able to happen inside. Or either hours or days had to be reduced for different services like our food pantry or our clothing closet. 

What would you say is the biggest task ahead?

As I think about UMD, just by itself, we just have the need to continue to build our infrastructure, strengthen the organization, so we can be able to continue to respond regardless of what the situation or action calls for. 

From a community standpoint, I think [it would be], what is the willingness going to be to commit to and sustain the resource level needed for providers to effectively address

the issue? Or to support the services and programming that exist or that will be stood up to attack this issue? 

How can readers make a difference when it comes to housing and homelessness?

You have many, many providers who have been doing this work within the community, but they may get limited to little support to do that. So definitely, if individuals are able to support the key organizations that are working on this issue, that goes a long way. 

The other piece of that, I would say, is for people really to be able to advocate with the elected officials. I see over my [time with Urban Ministries], the impact of the community showing up and advocating with those in leadership for the things that they want to see happen, and that definitely has an impact on the decisions that get made, what is priority and what is not. 

Is there anything else you wanted to add? 

I would just try to leave things on a positive note. Organizations have worked together to really implement … a central point for anyone in need of housing. I think that’s been a good addition to our system. There’s also been really focused outreach and engagement with the local landlords to try to identify and make available more affordable housing. I think that’s been something that’s been really strong within the community. 

I would say also, really there’s just been a greater spirit of cooperation and collaboration amongst providers, as well as our local governments. 

From an Urban Ministry standpoint, I’ve just been excited to see a lot of things we’ve been able to bring online for the organization. We’ve added substance education classes over the years. We’ve been able to expand our workforce development programming. Typically within a year, we’re helping well over 130 people to obtain jobs. That’s pretty huge. 

And then we’re also just super excited about the fact that we’re going to be opening up a day center for those who are unsheltered. That’s going to happen on April the 27th. We think that’s going to allow for, again, enhanced coordination of services, because there will be providers that will be there that individuals will be able to meet with and access services. We’re going to have a lot of basic services available for people, from showers to computer access to device charging stations. We’re excited about what that’s going to mean for a lot of folks that aren’t housed but need a place to be throughout the day.

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