How the Electronic Security Industry Protected the Men's Shelter of Charlotte

Charity Begins With Integrator

The Men’s Shelter of Charlotte has served the community since 1981. The organization operates two emergency locations that shelter up to 400 men every night. MSC has a housing component that helps move about 500 men a year out of the shelter and into more appropriate housing, and an income element to assist men in obtaining and/ or increasing benefits income (e.g. Social Security, disability, VA, etc.) and employment income. MSC’s supportive services center helps homeless men with education, medical, mental health, substance abuse recovery, housing, employment searches, etc. The nonprofit’s meal service is its largest volunteer opportunity with more than 120 congregations helping serve five meals daily.

The video surveillance installation was to be carried out at MSC’s 30,000-square-feet Tryon Street campus, which sits just outside Charlotte’s downtown, referred to as Center City or Uptown. The former warehouse was built in the early 1950s and converted for shelter use in the late 1980s. It now includes 216 emergency shelter beds, a commercial kitchen, housing and employment resource center, and supportive services center.

“There was an old system in place with only a few cameras still functional and the software used to monitor had almost completely failed,” says Dean, who has been with MSC since 2008. “I’m not sure when it was first installed but certainly more than 10 years ago. It was put together piecemeal and was just a poor system that wasn’t working anymore.”

The new system would serve myriad purposes. MSC’s homeless and transient population breeds an environment with potential conflict and theft concerns among guests, there’s the need to protect staff and property, guard against liability issues, and identify how situations arose and were subsequently handled.

Founded in 2001, local integrator ESS services more than 1,000 customers throughout the Carolinas. A member of PSA Security Network, the company’s commercial business mix is a 70% split of access control and video, with the balance coming from systems integration (20%) and intrusion detection (10%).

“We sat down with Carson, Project Manager Ann Parker and Shelter Director Pam Neal to understand their areas of concern, and resources in deploying and managing a system,” says Kottkamp. “Once we had a feel for their needs, we prepared a budget for them. I also approached our Tier One Partners and as donation commitments came in, we’d credit off that portion of the equipment. We finally provided a system that would have been in excess of $45,000 for $20,000.”

Camera System Is a Hybrid

ESS began the project in February 2015, with the majority of the installation completed in just two weeks, although the integrator’s lead technician, Howard Hunter, continued to work closely with shelter staff to complete the system’s configuration and setup. After some delays getting the project underway, it all came together in short order after ESS’ cabling infrastructure partner Connectivity LLC donated a crew to work in tandem and accelerate the installation process.

“There were several tweaks to the system design and coverage, and pricing adjustments as donations trickled in,” says Kottkamp. “We were finally awarded the project in late November. With the holidays, waiting on donated equipment and our operations team making a couple of wise design adjustments, it took us a couple of months to get started, which was probably the only negative to the project.”