Every morning, Kirstie Payne wakes up to the same reality.
She has no home.
“I didn’t ask to be homeless. I didn’t wake up and want to be this way,” Payne said.
Payne recently relocated to the Birmingham area because of its public transportation. She has since found a job and is trying to rebuild her life.
“I’ve gotten my job, and I’m coming back up slowly,” she said. “But it’s hard to come up when when you’re out here barely making it.”
For Payne, getting back on her feet isn’t simply about finding a job or eventually securing a place to live. There are more immediate questions that come with being unhoused.
Where do you shower?
Where do you keep your belongings?
Where do you find your next meal?
Perhaps most importantly, where do you go during the day when many shelters are closed?
That is the gap Birmingham officials said they are trying to address with Birmingham Oasis.
The Birmingham City Council approved the project last week, giving the city the green light to establish a new daytime resource area for people experiencing homelessness at 600 3rd Avenue North, just west of downtown.
The city plans to lease approximately 0.2 acres at the site for three years for a total of $50,000.
The city also approved a $600,000 agreement with the nonprofit Urban Alchemy to operate the Oasis for an initial 12 months. The city said officials selected Urban Alchemy through a request-for-proposals process, with the funding coming from Birmingham’s Opioid Abatement Program.
Allanah Melton, Birmingham’s Director of Unhoused Strategies, said the history of the property is part of what makes the project meaningful.
“This property owner heard about what we were doing and the space that he had just recently acquired actually was burned down by people experiencing homelessness," Melton said. "He thought it would be a really cool story to say we took a space and instead of being upset or angry, let’s take it and flip it and give it back to the community to do something positive with.”
It will not be a shelter. Instead, city officials envision something closer to a park and resource center where people can go during the day while connecting with services designed to help them eventually leave homelessness.
Birmingham Oasis — with “Oasis” standing for Open Accessible Safe Inviting Spaces — will operate approximately 12 to 14 hours a day, with core hours from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., Monday through Friday.
Among the planned services are housing navigation and case management, mental health and substance-use treatment referrals, peer recovery services, life-skills coaching, employment connections and assistance obtaining identification and vital records.
There will also be more basic amenities: meals, drinking water, public restrooms, personal lockers and storage.
The site will include a dog park, a designated smoking area, shaded gathering spaces and heated areas during colder weather.
The city added the site will have 24-hour surveillance, an emergency blue-light phone and trauma-informed personnel.
The Birmingham Police Department’s HOPE Unit, an outreach program for those without homes, will work with Urban Alchemy practitioners, with the city emphasizing connecting people to services rather than enforcement.
Melton said the goal isn’t to compete with shelters or organizations already serving people experiencing homelessness.
“We just want to do it in concert with them and give them another tool in the toolbox,” Melton said.
The city expects Birmingham Oasis to open in late September.
If at first you don't succeed...
The Oasis isn’t Birmingham’s first attempt to establish a daytime resource for people experiencing homelessness.
The city previously tried to move forward with a similar facility along First Avenue North on the western edge of downtown.
That effort fell apart in February following opposition from businesses in the surrounding area.
This time, Melton said the city has found a location that makes more sense.
“The area is largely industrial, and there are a few churches and some providers,” Melton said. “We focus on making sure the providers knew and everybody in the immediate footprint of the space.”
One of those churches is directly across the street.
Pastor Gerard Caldwell leads Sixth Street Peace Baptist Church. He said the church has already dealt with some of the challenges associated with people experiencing homelessness in the area.
“People in the front of the church are sleeping,” Caldwell said. “I used to not mind that, but when they started leaving the beer cans, the underwear, nasty stuff, needles, smoke stuff like that, that became a problem because we had to clean up.”
Caldwell said he isn’t opposed to helping people experiencing homelessness. But he wants to know exactly what the Oasis will mean for the surrounding community.
“I’m not against it,” he said. “I like to know what’s really their plan, what they’re gonna put across there, how it’s gonna affect the community, how it’s gonna affect our church.”
City Councilor Hunter Williams has also questioned the project, particularly its use of opioid settlement funds.
The city said the Urban Alchemy agreement will be funded through its Opioid Abatement Program. Williams questioned whether the money is being used in the best possible way.
“Those funds have a very specific use and designated use,” Williams said. “I think that there is an argument to be made that this site can turn into more or less an open air drug market.”
Williams said Birmingham should focus more heavily on the issues that can contribute to homelessness, including addiction, mental health and employment.
He also questioned whether the city should direct the money toward local organizations that are already providing services to people experiencing homelessness.
One piece at a time
The project is part of Mayor Randall Woodfin’s broader homelessness strategy, which the city said is focused on making homelessness “rare, brief, and nonrecurring.”
The Woodfin administration said it has spent $3 million from the city’s operating budget to strengthen homelessness services and expand outreach.
In April, the city also opened the Home for All safe-sleep community, which provides temporary housing and intensive case management for people experiencing chronic homelessness.
The administration said it has also partnered with nonprofits, healthcare providers and regional service agencies to increase access to permanent housing and supportive services.
The Oasis is intended to build on those efforts, rather than replace them.
“Homelessness cannot be solved with a single program or by simply asking people to move from one place to another,” Woodfin said. “Our strategy is to meet people where they are, connect them to the services they need, and help them transition into stable housing.”
For Kirstie Payne, it’s about treating the unhoused with dignity through access to basic amenities.
“It’s hard out here, not having a place to go take a shower,” Payne said. “I’m worrying about where you go to get the sweaty off of you. What’s people gonna think if I go into work and I got the same clothes on? Where do I wash? What do I do?”
And for people like Payne, the hope is that when the sun comes up and shelters close, there will finally be somewhere to go.
