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Dialogue Continues On Special Needs Housing
By: Mike Bundt
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Representatives from multiple organizations met together in a special town hall meeting Thursday to discuss the issue of special needs housing in Athens County.
Special needs housing has been an important issue in Athens County over the course of the last year.
The meeting continued the discussion and was received by a mostly pro-special housing crowd.
While representatives from a number of special needs organizations were present at the meeting, Good Works Director of Care Giving Andrea Horsch stood out.
Good Works runs the Timothy House in Athens.
The house shelters homeless individuals and families and provides them with an opportunity to turn their lives around.
However, in the last year, the Timothy House has not been able to help as many people as the organization would like.
Currently, Good Works is still trying to find another property to help them with their increased demand.
“For the situation that we’re in now, which is that our rates of people that we have on any given night has been steadily increasing over the last few years and the rates of the people that we’ve turned away hit an all time high last year, as far as that goes, our ideal situation really is just more space,” said Horsch.
Good Works tried to solve the problem last year by attempting to purchase a housing project on 10 Graham Drive; area citizens opposed the move.
The meeting continues the dialogue on the importance of special needs housing here in Athens County, but Athens City Council member Kent Butler thinks there's still room to grow.
“It’s something that affects the whole community… This is a good starting point so there needs to be more to happen, more dialogue and more discussion,” said Butler.