A new pallet shelter village for homeless adults in Georgetown should be ready for residents early in the New Year.
In recent months, volunteers have helped The Springboard Collaborative and First State Community Action Agency to build the 40 prefab homes.
But delays have plagued those efforts.
“The latest delay was that the critical electrical components had a lengthy delivery time - the main panels that supply power to the individual sleeping cabins - until last week were looking at a lead time of arrival of around Jan. 4 (2023), said Judson Malone, executive director of the Springboard Collaborative. "Now obviously when we get the panels in, there’s still a lot of work to be done. You still have to finish the wiring and so forth.”
Making matters worse, Malone says last week’s heavy rain caused flooding that stopped installation of that wiring, which has to be buried in trenches on the property.
With a few dry days ahead, Malone says they expect that wiring will be completed before more rain arrives this Thursday.
Malone says once the wiring is completed and the trenches are filled, there’s still some work left to be done.
“We still have to have the transformer from Delmarva Power. And my contractor seems to think that they’ll get it shortly but they don’t have an exact date. But obviously, you can get everything all wired up and ready to go, but if the power company doesn’t give you the power to power the system up - then you’re still delayed,” he said.
Malone adds community outreach has helped identify 38 people to fill homes being built. The hope is they can move in during the first two weeks of 2023.
