For individuals, homelessness is often associated with mental health issues and substance abuse. But for cities, high levels of homelessness correlates to a lack of housing, according to the director of the Athens Homeless Coalition.
Individuals can find themselves in a cycle of trauma, mental illness and substance abuse that “feeds on and perpetuates itself, and it’s very hard to get out of,” Michael Bien said during a “State of Homelessness” presentation Jan. 30 sponsored by Envision Athens and attended by about 200 people at Epting Events’ Barber Street venue.
On a macro level, though, cities with high numbers of unhoused people tend to be those with a low supply of housing and high demand, Bien said. “It’s a supply and demand issue,” he said. “It’s happening around the country. It’s been evolving for years and years.”
For Athens specifically, the University of Georgia puts pressure on the housing market, and during the COVID-19 pandemic, remote workers from bigger cities like Atlanta who were looking for more space found Athens attractive, Bien said.
An annual, federally mandated point-in-time count conducted last January found 386 people experiencing homelessness in Athens—whether sheltered or unsheltered—up 12% from 2023. The 2023 numbers, in turn, were up 20% from 2022. Anecdotally, police and social workers said they have seen an uptick recently as well.
“I see a spike, a scary spike,” said Jamie Scott, director of the Sparrow’s Nest. He said one person recently broke out the day shelter’s window, and that he has noticed more people exhibiting signs of drug abuse and mental illness, like talking to themselves. “No one has figured this out, that I know of,” Scott said.
“It’s really hard to get well when you don’t know where you’re going to be that night,” added Sally Kimmel-Sheppard, executive director of Envision Athens.
Deputy Chief Harrison Daniel of the Athens-Clarke County Police Department also said the homeless population has risen in recent years.
“Traditional law enforcement is insufficient for addressing homelessness,” Daniel said. Rather than arresting people or simply telling them to move along, ACCPD employs co-responder teams made up of an officer and a behavioral health specialist to connect people in crisis to services. Officers and dispatchers are also trained in crisis intervention and given cards with a list of resources to distribute.
However, police “are still obligated to enforce the law even when someone is facing difficult personal circumstances,” Daniel said.
Once in jail, inmates have access to counselors, a psychologist, a medical doctor and a pharmacy, said Chief Deputy Frank Woods, the jail administrator under Sheriff John Q. Williams. When they leave, the jail has jobs programs to place people in the construction business, but “our hardest thing is [finding] safe housing,” he said.
Service providers agreed that finding housing is one of the main obstacles to getting people off the street. “Housing is a topic of conversation at every single listening session,” said Katherine Rose Adams, a UGA professor who was once homeless herself and now chairs a committee focused on gathering input from those with “lived experience” being homeless. She said that half the people who’ve attended those listening sessions work full time but are still unable to afford housing.
At the Athens Day Center—a place where unhoused people can access resources and take care of tasks like laundry—Advantage Behavioral Health Systems had 266 requests for housing assistance during open houses last year, said John Morris, the Thrive Community Programs team leader. “We certainly do not have the capacity to house that many people,” he said.
Many of those are families—the Clarke County School District has about 460 children from 240 families who are homeless, according to Angela Pope, CCSD’s lead social worker. (The definition of homelessness for schools is broader than that used by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.) The district provides free after-school programs, transportation, food and school supplies for those families, she said.
Olivia Amato, executive director of the Athens Area Homeless Shelter, which assists women and families for up to 45 days, described some of her clients’ lives—sleeping in a car and getting kids ready for school in a gas station bathroom because their apartment’s mold was making them sick, but they couldn’t afford a security deposit. And the larger the family, the harder it is to find help. “If you have three or four children, it can be very difficult to find housing,” Amato said. “If you have more than that, it can be very difficult to find shelter.”
Others are seniors. Jenna Moon, case coordinator for the Athens Community Council on Aging, said she receives calls daily from seniors who are facing eviction or who can’t afford a rent hike. Some are in cognitive decline, making it even harder to navigate the system, she said. Using a federal grant, the ACCA provides emergency funds for hotels, rent, utilities and even space heaters for those whose power or gas was turned off. “We know this money will go quickly because the need is so great,” Moon said.
The Athens Homeless Coalition consists of various service providers that reorganized last year using $1.1 million in federal American Rescue Plan Act funds awarded by Athens-Clarke County. The group is currently working on a “coordinated entry” system in cooperation with law enforcement, schools and hospitals, Bien said. It was also selected for training by the Georgia Supportive Housing Institute, and at the end of that training plans to develop mixed-income housing for nurses, gig workers and people who work in the creative and service industries. By the middle of the year, the coalition also plans to launch a flexible housing fund that will provide money for security deposits and rental application fees, as well as pay back rent to prevent evictions.
Envision Athens is a group founded by the ACC government and other local institutions in 2018 to “develop a common vision for the Athens-Clarke County community.” Its work involves five key areas: arts and culture, behavioral health, workforce development, food security and housing. It also partners with the Athens Wellbeing Project to collect data about the community through surveys to inform decisions.
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