March 11, 2008. The Daily Progress.
A crowd of 1,900 Charlottesville-area residents gathered at University Hall on Monday night to press local officials to do more to relieve shortages of dental care for poorer adults and affordable housing in the city and Albemarle County.
The gathering representing 28 Christian, Jewish and Muslim congregations applauded health-care professionals who promised to provide more dental care for the poor.
The group’s affordable housing goals, which include bids for an additional $1 million for rental housing for the working poor, yielded differing responses generally favoring the goals from city councilors and county supervisors.
Four of five councilors won applause for saying they would commit with a “yes” to the budget goal of $500,000 in the next year to support affordable housing proposals set to come from a regional affordable housing task force. Councilor David Brown was listed in the “no” column because he attached the condition that “it be done jointly by the city and county.”
Most of the Albemarle supervisors joined Brown in conditional support of the goal that the county should likewise commit $500,000 but said they could not make an unconditional promise Monday night because they are too early in a tight budget process.
Many in the crowd seemed to understand the officials’ failure to deliver an immediate promise of “yes,” but one man in the crowd drew an admonishment from organizers for delivering a loud “boo.”
The second-annual large gathering of Interfaith Movement Promoting Action by Congregations Together, or
IMPACT, came after five months of research and organizing on behalf of health-care and housing goals established in October by more than 600 members of the diverse congregations.
IMPACT volunteers and a few poor residents of the city and county outlined needs for more dental care and affordable rental housing.
A Mexican immigrant whose first name is Carlos described himself as a construction worker with a wife who broke a tooth last year and suffered an infection yet could not afford dental care and wound up on the community’s lengthy waiting list for extractions and other adult dental care.
“Two months ago, one of my teeth fell out and I came in the same situation as my wife,” an interpreter quoted him as saying in Spanish. “I hope that I am heard because there are so many people, black, white and Hispanic” in need of adult dental services, he was quoted as saying.
Dr. Bill Viglione, one of seven health-care professionals promising to provide more dental care, strode across the stage at University Hall and said, “I would like to commit to Carlos tonight.”
He was greeted with a spontaneous standing ovation.
Representatives of the Charlottesville Free Clinic, Martha Jefferson Hospital, the University of Virginia Medical Center and other health groups pledged to supplement volunteer efforts with a program with paid dental staff to provide dental care to more poor residents.
The community’s waiting list of people needing dental care had grown to 775 by the end of February.
City and county officials generally were supportive of finding $1 million for additional affordable rental housing despite the list of seven in the yes column and five on the qualified no list.
County Supervisors Lindsay G. Dorrier Jr. and David Slutzky said they would support finding $500,000 in the county budget for the affordable housing proposals. Their four colleagues on the board agreed with the goal but added enough conditions that their responses were listed along with Brown’s in a “no” column.
“We need to have board meetings where that’s discussed and we need to have public input,” Supervisor Dennis Rooker explained.
“That’s not a commitment I can make tonight,” Supervisor Sally H. Thomas said. “I wish that I could say enthusiastically yes,” but the board is not far enough along in its budget process for such a promise, she said.
The 28 congregations involved included 244 people from the Roman Catholic Church of the Incarnation, 125 from St. Thomas Aquinas, 133 from First Baptist on West Main Street, 117 from Westminster Presbyterian, 109 from St. Paul’s Memorial and 131 from Thomas Jefferson Memorial Unitarian Universalist. At least 14 other churches had between 20 and 100 people present and Congregation Beth Israel had 90, while First Presbyterian counted 100.
