A Lynchburg nonprofit plans to convert its building on Magnolia Street into an emergency shelter for families experiencing homelessness by early 2026.
The project marks the first time that Miriam’s House will provide emergency services since the nonprofit was founded in 1994, said Sarah Quarantotto, the nonprofit’s executive director. Over the past 30 years, the organization has focused on helping families transition out of homelessness and achieve long-term stability by matching them with affordable housing, assisting with housing costs and providing wraparound support services such as employment guidance.
As the backbone agency for the region’s homeless coalition, called the Central Virginia Continuum of Care, Miriam’s House is constantly collecting data to analyze the trends of homelessness in Lynchburg and its four surrounding counties, Quarantotto said.
All the numbers point to the same conclusion, she said: “They tell us that we need more shelter capacity.”
In 2021, the Lynchburg region had 98 beds available at homeless shelters. Today, the number is down to 48, Quarantotto said.
The decrease is largely due to the closure of the Lynchburg Community Action Group’s shelter on Fifth Street in 2022 and the reduced capacity of the Salvation Army’s shelter over the past three years, Quarantotto said. Both shelters faced financial strain that prevented them from keeping up with demand for their services, she added.
The loss of shelter beds came at a time when homelessness numbers were on the rise across the country, according to data from the National Alliance to End Homelessness. Homelessness increased 18% from 2023 to 2024 — from 653,104 people to 771,480 people experiencing homelessness — which set a record high, according to the organization’s 2025 “State of Homelessness” report.
Quarantotto attributes the increase in homelessness to the nation’s affordability crisis in housing, food, health care and other sectors, and to the end of pandemic-era government aid that temporarily provided rental relief and stopped evictions.
All the data trends combined showed Miriam’s House leaders that they needed to pivot, Quarantotto said, and provide emergency services along with the longer-term support that they’re known for.
When it opens as an emergency shelter, the Magnolia Street building will serve five families at a time with a total of 31 beds, Quarantotto said. Each of the five units will have its own living room and bathroom, giving families privacy. Families who live in the building will also have access to food, hygiene supplies, trauma-informed case management and housing navigation services, according to a press release about the project.
Any family with children under the age of 18 will be welcome at the shelter, Quarantotto said. The shelter will have no restrictions, except for a safety requirement that no registered sex offenders can live in the building.
In 2024, Miriam’s House provided 274 people with housing and supportive services to end their homeless episodes, according to the nonprofit’s website. Those families took an average of four weeks to find a stable lease, Quarantotto said, so she predicts that families will only stay in the new emergency shelter for a few weeks to a month at a time while the same set of services is provided to achieve long-term stability.
The Magnolia Street building currently serves as permanent housing for chronically homeless women, Quarantotto said. Between now and the new year, Miriam’s House staff will help every current resident find new housing and move, she added.
Before the permanent housing program began in 2017, the Magnolia Street building served as transitional housing for families who had left emergency shelters but weren’t ready to live independently due to instability with finances, employment and other factors, Quarantotto said. The shift away from the transitional housing program began around 2008, she said, when the recession led to the creation of new models of homeless intervention that mainly focused on assisting families with housing costs while keeping them in their homes.
Because the Magnolia Street space has always been used for housing of one form or another, no structural renovations or zoning changes are needed between now and 2026, Quarantotto said. The only changes she expects are to the building’s furniture, which needs to be updated to models that can be more easily cleaned and turned over between temporary guests.
The Magnolia Street building will become the second emergency homeless shelter in the Lynchburg region, joining the Salvation Army, which is the only homeless shelter in operation today. Three domestic violence shelters — in Bedford County, Campbell County and Lynchburg — are also still active, Quarantotto said. Combined, it’s still not enough to meet demand.
“The number of families in our community without a safe place to stay has reached a crisis point,” wrote Quarantotto in the press release. “This conversion allows us to respond swiftly and effectively, ensuring that children and their parents are not sleeping in cars or unsafe situations.”