News
Local organizations will use American Rescue Plan dollars to turn the Sunset Motel into an emergency shelter
By: Theo Peck-Suzuki | Report for America
Posted on:
ATHENS, Ohio (WOUB/Report for America) — Plans are underway to transform the Sunset Motel on Columbus Road into emergency shelter for individuals facing homelessness.
The first phase of the project will renovate 20 rooms at the motel, according to HAPCAP Executive Director Kelly Hatas. The plan is to open in spring 2026. Hatas said HAPCAP and its partners will also spend the next 18 months planning how best to provide wraparound support and services to residents.
It’s all part of Project Co-Create, a multi-organization initiative of the Athens County Foundation to address housing issues in the area.
Athens County does not currently have any emergency shelter for people experiencing homelessness — a fact that has frustrated service providers for some time.
“Last December, the foundation was having a number of conversations with our partners and community members about the growing number of folks in our community who are housing insecure, and the lack of resources and options for them,” said Athens County Foundation Executive Director Kerry Pigman. “One of the early ideas that emerged was that lack of low-barrier shelter was a real challenge in our community.”
“It was specifically for non-congregate shelter. And so that required each individual to have their own living space, their own bathroom, and so that really narrowed down opportunities for where we could actually make this happen,” Hatas explained.
The motel leapt out as an ideal site for such a project. It doesn’t require new build, and turning it into a shelter won’t diminish the supply of housing the way converting an apartment complex would. It has the right infrastructure and zoning. It’s close to support services, isn’t in a flood zone, and even sits directly on an Athens Public Transit route.
On top of that, the family that has owned the motel for almost 30 years is excited to see their life’s work used to benefit the community.
The shelter will follow a housing-first model: Get a roof over someone’s head, then figure out treatment. This has proven more effective than traditional treatment-first approaches, which require people to show evidence of progress on issues like substance use disorder before giving them stable housing. Hatas said that just isn’t effective.
“Everything else is exponentially more difficult without stable shelter,” she said.
The shelter is the latest ARPA-funded project to come to southeast Ohio. Others include Appalachian Community Grant winners like the renovation of the Armory on Court Street in Athens and the New Leaf program for survivors of abuse and trauma. The Ross County Community Resource Center, which serves in part as an emergency shelter, was also created with ARPA dollars.
HAPCAP Community Services Director Jessica Stroh invited community members to share their thoughts via a survey on HAPCAP’s website. The survey includes an option to set up a one-on-one meeting for those who want to speak directly with the project’s organizers.
Stroh said the initial response has been “overwhelmingly positive.”
“I think that people see it (homelessness) with their own eyes, or know people or have family and friends that have experienced it,” she said.
That’s certainly the case for Emily Johnson, who owns the restaurant Tavolino and serves a free meal there each Tuesday. Johnson said the meals draw between 80 to 150 people each week, and while not everyone who attends is unhoused, some are.
“The number of people that I meet continuously — continuously — that are new faces to me, that are new to being homeless, you know, they just don’t know what to do,” Johnson said.
Johnson said the new emergency shelter will be a big help.
“I think it’s fantastic,” she said. “We need it. We desperately need it, there’s nothing around here.”
Stroh said the shelter will be a community effort.
“We have a lot of people in this community that have different strengths and talents and ideas, or maybe they have finances — you know, there’s lots of different ways that people can share and be a part of something,” she said. “The shelter itself is meant to be just a temporary place for folks, and they’re gonna need support moving forward. And I think that’s where there’s gonna be opportunities to get involved as well.”