First off, let me offer my apologies for the gap in news. As you may have heard, my partner and I are expecting a baby boy in August and between early pregnancy woes and the scramble to find a new house right-sized for our family, it’s been a tumultuous few months. But I’m back, and optimistic about returning to weekly updates-- at least until our little man gets here.
Finding housing in Athens is no joke, and the housing crisis impacts us all on many fronts. The coming months present numerous opportunities for us to address these challenges as a local government, from the most basic needs of our unsheltered neighbors to more complex challenges of expanding our housing stock so that working people can thrive here.
For folks living outdoors, programs in Salt Lake City, Vancouver, Seattle, and other cities have proven shown getting them into permanent, supportive, no-strings-attached apartments can help them gain and retain employment, pursue education, stay on top of their behavioral health, and kick drugs-- ultimately saving cities money along the way. With the American Rescue Plan signed into law earlier this month, I am excited about the prospect of using federal funding to transition neglected hotel and apartment properties into permanent housing for the homeless and to fund wraparound services to support tenants in becoming financially stable.
But our current homeless shelters are already unable to operate at peak capacity due to funding shortfalls, and so, while we await disbursement of ARP funds, I’m advocating that we bridge the gap by including increased operational funding for the Athens Area Homeless Shelter in our next year’s budget, which we began discussing last week (view the full budget discussion here).
There are thousands of Athenians who are precariously housed, just one unexpected bill away from eviction. That’s why I’m also working Working with Commissioner Tim Denson to jumpstart an Athens version of Project Reset, modeled after a successful program in Gwinnett, to keep people facing eviction in their homes. A partnership between the Athens-Clarke County Government, Clarke County Magistrate Court and non-profit housing service providers, the program will negotiate with landlords to keep their tenants in their homes in exchange for a reduced settlement of their back rent, to be repaid by Athens-Clarke County.
While we move swiftly to bandage some of the gashes opened by the pandemic recession, longstanding capitalist pressures on our housing market remain and require transformative solutions.
Housing is a human right, and one means of guaranteeing it to all is to negotiate its inclusion into big developments that come down the local planning pipeline. To this end, Mayor Girtz has charged the Inclusionary Zoning Working Group-- composed of myself, Commissioner Tim Denson, housing non-profit leadership, several planning commissioners, and members of the Georgia Initiative on Community Housing-- to suss out an exhaustive list of expectations for affordability in large-scale housing developments. Some questions we’ll work through include: how do we define affordability? What kinds of units do we want to see? What enforcement mechanisms should we use? April 12th marks our first meeting, and I look forward to providing updates on that work as it moves forward.
Last week, I discussed all the issues above and more as part of a series on affordable housing hosted by the Athens Area Democratic Socialists of America. Rewatch here for more detail on how we got here and where I hope we’re going.
There’s so much going on-- budget discussions! COVID vaccination outreach! next week’s voting meeting! and more!-- so look out for another more general update from me in your inbox by the end of this week or early next.
Enjoy your rainy Wednesday, friends.
Rainy Wednesdays for the win.
Congrats on your forthcoming and move in with your partner. We're happy for you over here!
Is there anyway to redirect some of the SPLOST money from 2020 to your housing initiative. I wasn't for the Classic Center Arena Project before, but there was no way to vote for everything else on the docket without also voting for that too. If we're being honest though, large scale events aren't going to pop back in place anytime soon and I say that as someone whose income is derived from events. The city doesn't need a venue of that magnitude and we're already kind of heavy on mid sized venues for a city this size. I know there's probably measures in place since it was voted on, but money for Classic Center Arena Project seems like a waste at this point. Could better serve the homeless and that helps the whole city grow in a positive direction.