Columbus City Council, United Way discuss homelessness in the city

COLUMBUS, Ga. ( WRBL ) — The Columbus City Council held a work session Tuesday morning. At the top of the agenda was an update on homelessness across the city.

We need to quit assuming that everyone who walks down the street with a backpack is homeless.

Pat Frey, Vice President of United Way of the Chattahoochee Valley, Home for Good

Pat Frey leads the local United Way’s Home for Good program, which aims to tackle homelessness in our community.

In January, the program conducted their annual Point In Time Count. The survey, required by the Department of Housing and Urban Development, aims to track trends in the homeless population across our Columbus and Phenix City. According to the latest count, there has been a 10.2 percent decrease in homelessness, locally, since 2016. However, over the last three years Frey says there has been about a 4.5 percent increase.

Where are these people coming from? Meaning are these individuals who are coming from being evicted? Are these folks that are coming from outside of our area? It’s a myriad of locations. But the interesting thing is we had a high percentage of people who spent the night in their own home but were at risk of being evicted. So we’re looking for prevention kinds of things.

Pat Frey, Vice President of United Way of the Chattahoochee Valley, Home for Good

Frey says this epidemic is a multifaceted issue seen not just in our backyard, but around the world. She attributes many factors to the overall issue including wages not keeping up with the cost of living and the mental health crisis.

Some will say, ‘well, it’s because of COVID.’ That’s some of it. It could be rents have gone up 30 to 40 percent a month, depending on where you are in the country. Yeah, that’s some of it, too.

Pat Frey, Vice President of United Way of the Chattahoochee Valley, Home for Good

Frey is calling for systemic change to approach homelessness in our community.

Homelessness doesn’t necessarily look like what we think it looks like. We have to look at some real development of what’s called workforce or affordable housing. Because we have a shortage of quality, safe, affordable housing in our community and again… across the country.

Pat Frey, Vice President of United Way of the Chattahoochee Valley, Home for Good

Frey is set to meet with local officials, to speak about a recent Supreme Court Decision that made it lawful to arrest, ticket and fine people for sleeping outdoors on public property. She says it was a consensus at the work session, that Columbus does not have the appetite to make homelessness a crime.

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