What sort of priorities does Athens have about homeless problem?

I was heartened to read in The Athens NEWS about city officials' apparently renewed willingness to discuss solutions for helping to meet the basic needs of area homeless families. Elevating as a priority the immediate needs of the poorest poor, and not just those of property-owning constituents, requires conviction, resourcefulness and political courage. But we would do well to avoid confusing a few vaguely promising quotations from the mayor (or anyone else) for a real and comprehensive action plan that directly addresses poverty and homelessness.

I asked at a recent City Council meeting precisely what it would take to permit the previously rejected, and by all accounts desperately needed, expansion plans for Athens' homeless shelter. I was told that "(Good Works executive director) Keith Wasserman's needs" would likely need to be met in the form of starting anew and pitching the project as a planned unit development, which would still face the dual challenges of gaining approval from both City Council and the Athens Planning Commission, or by relocating the existing shelter into the city's much pricier R-3 zone.

Such cumbersome, long-range and unlikely "fixes" strike me as a way of further relegating the issue of homelessness to the status of a special-interest cause, rather than addressing it as a community problem worthy of community solutions. When, due to lack of space, families with children are routinely denied emergency shelter in freezing temperatures, we need for leaders to respond with no less urgency than to reports of stolen cars or broken sewer pipes. And if it's true that a combination of the Athens Board of Zoning Appeals and some Central Avenue residents originally rejected plans for the shelter's expansion for reasons ranging from aesthetics to fear of homeless neighbors, then the very thrust of this discussion is in dire need of shift toward a re-examining of community priorities.

Troy Gregorino
Athens