The Augusta Commission’s Homeless Task Force Subcommittee is ready to sit down with commissioners and go over the action plan that has been a year in the making.
Commissioners voted during their March 15 meeting to turn the task force’s regularly scheduled meeting on March 24 into a workshop.
“I think it will explain thoroughly to all the members of the commission what the programs are and what the recommendations are,” said Commissioner Dennis Williams, co-chairman of the task force. “So, they can have a clearer understanding when they come up to vote on which part or which activities that we, as the commission, want to take on behalf for the committee.”
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The task force was formed in early 2021 after homeless veteran Willie Walker was found frozen to death on the street in December 2020.
Over the next 12 months, the task force members broke into seven subgroups to research how people end up homeless. The groups also looked into problems associated with homelessness, such as health care, mental health and addiction.
The street team, made up of members of the Richmond County Marshal’s Office, Richmond County deputies and volunteers, spread out across the country finding encampments of homeless people. They counted the number of people living in each encampment, including the number of men, women, children and veterans.
Lynda Barrs, resource development director for CSRA Economic Opportunity Authority and chairwoman of the task force’s action committee, said the team spent eight hours a day for five days locating the encampments and talking with people living there. The team found 190 unsheltered people in the encampments. Unsheltered mean individuals who are living on the street, not utilizing area shelters.
Barrs said she’s excited to finally be able to sit down with commissioners and show them the action plan.
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“The reason I’m excited is that these are strategies the city and the people on the street and the people in shelters, desperately, desperately need,” she said. “So, it makes me happy, not just for the group that’s worked on them, but for the people that are going to be served by these strategies.”
Commissioner Jordan Johnson, co-chairman of the task force, said task force members have worked every day to collect data that has been refined into the action plan.
“I’m glad that we’re at this point. Yes, it’s exciting, but it’s a sigh of relief,” he said. “But it also presents us with the reality that the work is just beginning. And so, we have to just continue to forge forward.”
The March 24 workshop will be held in the commission chambers. It will begin at 12:30 p.m.
Dana Lynn McIntyre is a general assignment reporter for The Augusta Press. Reach her at dana@theaugustapress.com
