Members of the Augusta Commission’s Administrative Committee voted unanimously on April 12 to receive as information and offer support to recommendations from the homeless task force subcommittee after an attempt to do so was derailed in the March 30 meeting of the full commission.
District 1 Commissioner Jordan Johnson, who served as co-chair of the subcommittee, presented the item. The task force’s strategic plan is laid out in a 37-page document that was distributed to commissioners.
Hawthorne Welcher, director of the city’s Housing and Development Department, told the committee members this approval would simply be step one in the process.
“If approved, and in support of that, then I think we will move to move forward to provide you with a cost allocation plan that speaks to the type of housing it speaks to the locality, it speaks to the total development budget, it speaks to the number of housing units we’ll be able to provide. It speaks to positions as well, I think that’s what we’re trying to get to,” he said.
It also called for moving forward with creating the Homeless Crisis Response System Coordinator and to commit about $3 million of American Rescue Plan Act funds to develop 50 to 75 permanent supportive housing units.
The recommendation to create the coordinator position came from a plan to address homelessness that was developed in 2004, but never fully acted upon.
“For its time, it was dead on the money. It failed,” said Lynda Barrs, chairman of the task force’s action plan committee and Resource Development Director for CSRA Economic Opportunity Authority. “So, we looked at why did it fail. And I’ll tell you, it failed because leadership changed. Community leaders moved; stakeholders left. And the plan sort of faded into oblivion.”
“It is critically important,” Johnson said. “If we’re going to see this thing to fruition, if we’re going to see our homeless numbers decrease, there needs to be a person hired to do this type of work because of all of the moving pieces. No one single commissioner can handle it. Not one single mayor can handle it. No one single nonprofit can handle this.”
More than a year in the making, the action plan is designed to guide Augusta on how to help homeless individuals, either short term or permanently, transition into affordable housing.
The task force was formed in early 2021 after homeless veteran Willie Walker was found frozen to death on the street in December 2020.
Commissioners, along with Mayor Hardie Davis Jr., attended a two-hour workshop on March 24 to go over the recommendations and give commissioners the opportunity to ask questions.
Johnson’s item was added to the March 30 agenda, but when the vote was to be called, District 6 Commissioner Ben Hasan said he had questions.
The decision was made to table the item and have it discussed in the April 12 Administrative Services Committee. With the committee’s approval the item will be added to the April 19 agenda for the full commission.
Dana Lynn McIntyre is a general assignment reporter for The Augusta Press. Reach her at dana@theaugustapress.com
