The Athens-Clarke County Commission is set to vote Jan. 2 on a plan to distribute nearly $5 million to local nonprofits to help the city’s unhoused population.
“We are now in the phase where we will start to allocate funds and begin implementing, so this is a big deal,” assistant county manager Niki Jones said at a work session earlier this month.
The federal funding, through Democrats’ American Rescue Plan Act passed in 2021, will be divided into three parts, according to a plan county officials presented to commissioners. The big-ticket item will be $2.2 million for a new homeless shelter, addressing a shortage of beds.
The most recent point-in-time count last February found a total of 342 homeless individuals, with 177 unsheltered. There are a total of 167 shelter beds in Athens and 63 transitional units, leaving a gap of least 112 beds. The biggest need, according to a consultant’s study, is for “low barrier” beds that accept people regardless of their criminal histories, substance abuse or mental health problems, along with associated services to help those individuals.
A second request for proposals would cover street outreach, health care and planning for a disaster response-like “housing surge” in the event that the number of unhoused people spikes rapidly. A third RFP would include diversion programs for those in danger of losing housing, as well as rapid rehousing, incentives for landlords to accept homeless tenants and employment partnerships.
Although the commission has already approved spending the federal funding on homelessness and accepted a commission-approved study with recommendations on how to spend the funds, some commissioners raised questions or objections at the Dec. 14 work session. Most notably, Commissioner Dexter Fisher said he would not vote for the plan as presented because he wanted to combine the three RFPs into one, and to give the chosen nonprofit the money upfront rather than reimburse expenses, as is typical for federal contracts. [Editor’s note: Fisher later clarified that he wanted the ACC government to reimburse nonprofits more quickly.]
Qualifications listed by ACC for a successful bidder include: being an officially recognized nonprofit, currently serving ACC residents, having at least a year’s experience, and demonstrating a capacity to meet the stringent performance and reporting requirements for federal grants. County regulators ran into issues when the commission awarded seven-figure federal grants to inexperienced organizations with the recent homeless camp and eviction prevention program that would have been compounded if money were disbursed upfront—it is more difficult to claw back once it is spent.
An agency could bid on all three contracts, but one that knows how to build a shelter may not know how to provide social services, Melinda Lord, assistant director of the ACC Housing and Community Development Department, told commissioners. “The types of activities are so different,” she said.
Assuming they are approved Jan. 2, the RFPs would be released Jan. 8, and nonprofits would have until Mar. 8 to apply for funds. The commission would then choose the winning bidders at its May 7 meeting. Time is of the essence—ARPA funds must be appropriated by the end of 2024 and spent by the end of 2026, or returned to the federal government.
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