The Henry County Board of Commissioners received a report from Georgia Tech graduate students at its regularly scheduled meeting on Tuesday May 2. The students were there to present on ways to address the local “hidden homeless” population, a study paid for using Atlanta Regional Commission grant dollars.
Shannan Sagnot, the County’s Community Development Director, defined the challenge at hand.
“Hidden homelessness is what we’ve defined as those individuals and households that we don’t typically see out in the public,” Sagnot said. “These are individuals that might be sheltering with family or friends or sheltering in hotels.”
Sierra Scott, a graduate student in Georgia Tech’s City and Regional Planning program, went on to detail the scale of the challenge.
“Henry County Public Schools have identified over 1,800 students experiencing hidden homelessness,” Scott said. “This means that there are many parents in the same situation as well.”
Scott went on to note that many of the necessary services to help those affected already exist, whether they are provided by the government, nonprofits, or private entities. As such, the biggest thing the County can do is to bring the services and those in need together.
Darian Ruggles, a peer of Scott’s, highlighted the need for a web tool to accomplish this kind of coordination.
“The County could fulfill its role as a repository with the creation of a website that hosts all the resources available in Henry County,” said Ruggles, before adding that it would serve as “a standardized coordinated entry system, which is where individuals can do one intake assessment and it lets them know what [services] they can apply for within the County.”
Other suggestions included the creation of a County Housing Authority as well as a Landlord Risk Management Fund – which would insure renters willing to take on individuals with a criminal history or previous evictions on their record, as a means to stabilize the market.
Ruggles also mentioned the idea of converting a County facility to an emergency housing location, complete with embedded wraparound offerings such as employment and legal services.
“There is a need for a place that families can go to and stay together when a crisis occurs,” Ruggles said. “Right now the most common response is getting families a hotel room. But that normally only lasts seven days. It’s very costly for the County to do that. And it does not truly give families enough time to get back up onto their feet.”
Members of the Board of Commissioners expressed their concern at the scale of the challenge as well as their resolve to confront the challenge.
“1,800 students. That’s alarming,” said District 1 Commissioner Johnny Wilson. “We need to look at some of these recommendations and see what we can do.”
“It is a huge issue that we’re dealing with,” said District 5 Commissioner Kevin Lewis. “You have a vision for tackling the problem. This will allow us to crystallize our plans and thoughts going forward.”
“I’ve been talking about this from day one,” said Board Chair Carlotta Harrell. “Addressing homelessness and workforce housing issues that we have here in our community that some don’t want to recognize.”
