Joe Barrett is back to living on the street.

Left paralyzed on his left side by a stroke, the 62-year-old Richmond native is among more than 130 homeless people who lost their shelter beds Saturday.

That’s when City Hall closed three winter shelters it had been funding.

That includes two shelters that had operated since mid-November: The 60-bed space for men at United Nations Church in South Side provided in its gym and the 30-bed shelter the nonprofit RVA Sister’s Keeper operated at 2807 Hull St. for women and children.

It also includes the 60-bed unisex shelter that Commonwealth Catholic Charities operated at 1900 Chamberlayne Ave. in North Side and which Mr. Barrett and others called home during the winter.

April 15 has been the traditional ending date for the city’s support of inclement weather services for the winter, and the city contracts with the shelters were written to expire on that date, the Free Press was told.

Sherill Hampton, city director of the Housing and Community Development Department, estimated to the council’s Education and Human Services Committee two days before the close that each of the shelters cost $100,000 or more per month to oper- ate, and there was no additional funding available.

According to city documents, the city pays other organizations to operate inclement weather shelters in the winter because there are more people seeking a warm space than can be accommodated in the 260 beds that groups such as Caritas, Daily Planet, Home Again, Liberation Veterans Services and the Salvation Army operate every day.

This year, the Free Press has learned, the city did not completely end payments for shelter. At the last minute, the city made an exception for eight families with 19 children and placed them at an unnamed hotel. Included were a mother who is nursing a newborn, and another who was to be released from a local hospital after giving birth, the Free Press was told.

But everyone else was told to make their own way.

“It is what it is,” said Mr. Barrett, a recovering alcoholic who is estranged from his family and has no place to go. Stephen Harms, senior policy adviser to city CAO Lincoln Saunders, told the council committee that the city’s plan for next winter is to pay for the operation of 150 shelter beds and to provide 25 more beds at a hotel or other non-congregant setting.

He also told the committee that conversations are underway with the umbrella Greater Richmond Continuum of Care and its homeless service partners about expanding the number of permanent shelter beds by at least 50. That would enable 350 to 400 more people to gain a place and potentially reduce demand for city-provided shelter space, he said.

Such plans do not offer immediate help to Mr. Barrett and others. Blessing Warriors RVA, which brings food, clothes and other items to the homeless, already reports serving 200 homeless people a day.

Unlike many of the homeless, Mr. Barrett receives a monthly government disability check, but the $900 does not stretch far enough these days to cover rent he has found.

The former carpenter said he was grate- ful for the CCC shelter, which provided raised cots he could maneuver onto to sleep and two meals. But it wasn’t like it was a panacea, noting that he and everyone else

had to wait in the cold and sometimes rain for the 7 p.m. opening and had to be out by 8 a.m. the next morning. Still, it provided a roof over his head.

Mr. Barrett said he has called every private shelter provider as well as the home- less hotline, but nothing has worked out.

“I was offered a shelter bed, but it was on the second floor,” he said. “I would have had to climb steps to get there, and I can’t do that anymore.

“I also was offered the top bunk in another shelter, but I couldn’t use it. My condition means I need something on the first floor or something accessible by elevator,” he said.

So in recent days, he has hung around a coffee shop on the Virginia Commonwealth University campus, his favorite place even when he stayed at the CCC and finds a sheltered spot at night to sleep in his wheelchair.

He has no choice. “I can’t lie on the ground because I can’t get up,” he said. “If I had to do that, it would be better to eat a bullet.”

He has his fingers crossed that his luck will change and that he’ll wind up with a place to live before winter rolls around again and he finds himself again living temporarily in a city-supported shelter.