The Cumberland County Board of Commissioners voted unanimously on Monday to cancel plans to raise the rent on Jan. 1 by more than 500% for Cumberland County CommuniCare, a nonprofit agency that provides services for mental health problems, substance abuse, troubled youth and adults, and other issues.
The rent may still rise in the future, but for now it will remain at $42,808 annually, or $2.95 per square foot per year. The rent had been scheduled to increase to $217,410 per year, or $15 per square foot.
CommuniCare is housed in 14,494 square feet of a county office building at 109 Bradford Ave. on Haymount Hill above downtown Fayetteville. Its lease expired June 30, but was extended until Dec. 31 at the lower price.
The rate increase proposed to take effect Jan. 1 led CommuniCare to make plans to find a new location, according to a memo from County Attorney Rick Moorefield. The agency would have rented the space for six months, with an option to extend another six months.
The rate increase was given preliminary approval on Nov. 14 by the previous board of county commissioners. The commissioners also discussed CommuniCare’s rent in May, where the $2.95 price per foot was questioned by then-Chair Glenn Adams and now-former Commissioner Jimmy Keefe.
Three of the board’s seven members rotated off in the November election, including Keefe, and the newly composited board took office this month. The new board voted Monday to stop the increase.
Part of the problem, newly elected County Commissioners Chair Kirk deViere told CityView on Tuesday, is that the rent increase was coming after CommuniCare had already put its annual budget in place.
Monday’s vote was to give the newly elected commissioners time to review the lease, deViere said, and give CommuniCare’s leadership time to prepare their budget for the increased expense.
“Of course, we’d like to keep them in that location,” deViere said. “With the new terms of the lease, if they can stay in that building, then that’s what we want to do. Again, we wanted to give them a little bit more ‘runway’, so to speak, or a little bit more time to work through it in their proper budget cycle, not outside their budget cycle.
“But they’re a huge asset, especially when you look at health and human services,” he said.
Cumberland County CommuniCare was established in 1998. It has operated from the Bradford Avenue location for 10 years, CommuniCare Executive Director Sarah Hallock told CityView on Tuesday. She said she is grateful to the county for allowing the agency to be based there, and for extending the lease further at the lower rate.
She said the Bradford Avenue location is ideal because it is not far from the county courthouse and county jail, and because it’s on the city bus lines.
CommuniCare provides services to people that private health and counseling services do not assist, she said. The services are often provided at reduced rates or free for people who otherwise could not afford them, she said.
“We’ve expanded our reach and the engagement of court-involved people by over 35 percent” over the last 10 years, Hallock said.
When CommuniCare moved in, the lease was set in part based on what CommuniCare does to benefit the county, she said.
According to an archived copy of CommuniCare’s former website, “CommuniCare provides quality driven prevention and intervention services for at-risk and court involved youth, adults and families that create local alternatives to juvenile/district court and address problem behaviors through evidenced-based treatment and programs.”
It said it helps people with mental health issues, substance abuse disorders, PTSD, trauma from sexual assault, grief, abandonment and abuse.
Senior reporter Paul Woolverton can be reached at 910-261-4710 and pwoolverton@cityviewnc.com.
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