The Athens-Clarke County Commission approved a plan at its Oct. 3 meeting to wind down the First Step homeless camp on Barber Street. The camp will shutter at the end of the year after almost two years of operation, with some residents receiving vouchers to move into hotels.
The camp—the brainchild of Commissioner Jesse Houle and former commissioners Mariah Parker and Tim Denson—was approved in fall 2021, and the nonprofit Athens Alliance Coalition was given a two-year, $2.5 million contract to run it using federal CARES Act funds. However, AAC ran into trouble last summer, when founder Charles Hardy was convicted of assaulting a former resident, and the ACC Housing and Community Development Department found financial problems like lack of documentation for expense reimbursement. AAC’s board of directors subsequently fired Hardy, who dissolved the nonprofit he had founded and, the ACC government alleges, took some items purchased with taxpayers funds from the camp. The board then reorganized into a new nonprofit but continued to suffer from staffing and personnel issues. The new nonprofit is not in “a state where we can partner with them contractually” to continue operating the camp, ACC Manager Blaine Williams said.
Commissioner Ovita Thornton voted for the plan, but said she was upset that Hardy was pushed out. “It bothers me to no end that that camp was running efficiently, and we as a commission allowed personal, alleged legal stuff to get it shut down,” Thornton said.
Commissioner Melissa Link proposed putting off the vote for two weeks to gather input from camp residents. “There will always be a subset of unhoused people who tend to stay outdoors,” like dog owners, Link said. “This kind of low-barrier, pseudo-outdoor housing should always be an option.”
Only Houle and Commissioner Dexter Fisher backed Link’s motion. Fisher later voted in favor of the original plan, which passed 8–2.
“I think we’ve known since the camp was approved that there’s an end date, and we’ve talked about it for some months now,” Williams said.
The camp—on the grounds of a vacant school bought by ACC for future expansion of the nearby water treatment plant—was originally intended to be a temporary solution to the clearing out of various unofficial camps around the city. The hotel vouchers will buy additional time to implement a permanent solution. However, Houle said tents should remain part of the mix for those people who prefer it.
Commissioner Allison Wright disagreed. “Certainly [the plan] passing is moving forward to help us with the transition we need from this encampment—to real roofs over these peoples’ heads, not tents, not tarps. Those don’t count,” she said.
The plan for closing the camp includes $238,000 to provide hotel vouchers for up to 25 people for four months, as well as funding for case management.
The commission also approved a much broader strategic plan to address homelessness and another plan for affordable housing. The latter recommends boosting spending on affordable housing from the current level of about $1.7 million a year—mostly federal funds—to $5 million. Revenue could come from a tax increase, cutting other expenses, philanthropic grants and/or the sale of county-owned property. The money could then go toward programs like affordable housing construction, down-payment assistance, repairs for low-income homeowners or buying rental properties to keep them affordable and out of the hands of investors. Fisher was the only commissioner to vote against the affordable housing plan, saying it has become too entwined with the homelessness plan, and that he wants to focus on housing for middle-class workers.
The commission voted down a pet registration plan floated by the Animal Services Department as a way to help reunite pets with their owners. For a small fee of a few dollars a year, pet owners would be required to register their pets in a database whenever they were vaccinated for rabies. While many pets are microchipped, owners rarely update that information when they move, so even chipped animals often languish at the pound because their owners cannot be located. However, public reaction to the proposal was overwhelmingly negative. Link, Houle and Commissioner Tiffany Taylor were the only yes votes.
This article has been updated to correct the vote on closing the homeless camp.
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