MAYVILLE – Chautauqua County is currently housing homeless residents in both Erie and Cattaraugus counties, due to a shortage of spots locally.

In April, the Ellicott Code Office had to shut down the portion of the Clarion Pointe Hotel, formerly known as the Comfort Inn on Route 60 just outside of Jamestown, that houses Department of Social Services clients.

Then earlier this month, the former Econo Lodge on Route 60, Fredonia was completely shut down. It, too, had been housing DSS clients.

On Wednesday, Legislator Marty Proctor, R-Mina, who chairs the Human Services Committee meeting, asked Diane Anderson, the director of the county’s Certification – Temporary Assistance Program, about the situation of the two hotels being closed.

Anderson said DSS staff are required to inspect where homeless people are staying every six months.

At the Clarion Pointe Hotel, her staff inspected it with the Ellicott code office and the decision was made for a portion to be closed.

For the Econo Lodge, Anderson said her staff noted the roof was leaking and brought in the local code enforcement, which condemned the property.

Fredonia Mayor Michael Ferguson had also been quite outspoken about issues at the former Econo Lodge, noting a number of police and fire calls for that location.

Proctor asked Anderson if her staff normally does its inspection with local code enforcement officials.

She said they don’t always, but are trying to do that more.

“They’ve been doing it more often recently because there are issues that they (code officials) can identify. They’re different than the checklist that we have and my staff are trained in doing temporary assistance work, so they’re not real good experts in inspections,” Anderson said.

Anderson said due to the two hotels being shut down, they had to relocate a number of families.

Some individuals were moved to other hotels in the county, while others were taken to Buffalo, Hamburg and Cuba, N.Y., where they have contracts.

Anderson said they want to move the individuals back to Chautauqua County when rooms become available, in part because of the cost to house individuals elsewhere. She noted how Chautauqua County has to transport those staying out-of-county back and forth to various appointments.

Anderson said there’s no easy solution.

“Permanent supportive housing is what we need for the population,” she said.

When asked to define “supportive housing,” Anderson said programs like the Southern Tier Environments for Living runs for those with mental illness or are struggling with substance abuse.

“What STEL provides, we just don’t have enough to meet the needs of the population,” she said.

Anderson added they have been making some progress helping get some homeless individuals permanent housing.

In March 2025, the state approved a Public Assistance Shelter Program (PASS) for the county. It provides additional allowance for up to 50 families and up to 125 single individuals or childless couples.

The additional allowance, when combined with the shelter allowance, allows those eligible for the program to be able to afford up to 85% of the Chautauqua County Fair Market Rent.

“A lot of (participants) are finding housing because of the PASS supplement because they could not do it on the public assistance grant alone,” Anderson said.