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A plan to build secure sleeping units in Athens faces a major setback as bitter cold strikes local homeless population
By: Theo Peck-Suzuki | Report for America
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ATHENS, Ohio (WOUB/Report for America) — Michelle Anderson cried when she realized she would have to live in a tent.
Until last year, the 58-year-old Athens resident had a house and a job. Then she had a heart attack, followed by other health complications that repeatedly landed her in the hospital. After losing the house to foreclosure, she moved into a hotel, hoping to find something more permanent soon.
She didn’t. Since July, she’s lived in a tent in the woods around Athens. When temperatures dipped to 18 degrees in early December, her fingers turned blue. The doctor told her she had the beginnings of frostbite.
Stories like Anderson’s are why Ginger Schmalenberg of The Gathering Place has been working since August to install two Conestoga huts behind the Ohio Means Jobs building on West Union. Each hut comes with a mattress and is insulated and lockable. They are also quick and cheap to build.
Schmalenberg spent months gathering support from the businesses on West Union. On Monday, she told WOUB the huts could be ready as soon as January.
The next morning, it all fell apart.
At Tuesday’s county commissioners’ meeting, Commissioner Charlie Adkins unexpectedly told Schmalenberg the county plans to sell the Ohio Means Jobs building.
“We don’t have many people in that facility today,” Adkins explained. Most of the services that were once housed there have moved to newer buildings, including one in Nelsonville.
It took Schmalenberg months to even find the location, and several more to communicate with all the local stakeholders. As of Monday, she said, all but two of the 37 nearby businesses she contacted were on board.
Now she’s back to square one.
Local landlord Brent Hayes was at the meeting and shared his concerns about the project with Schmalenberg.
“Are these folks within our county, or are we taking care of other counties’ potential problems?” Hayes asked.
“Ninety-five percent of the people we serve are from Athens County, born and bred,” Schmalenberg replied.
Folks within our county
Technically, Michelle Anderson was not born and bred in Athens. She moved here from Michigan at the age of 21. That was 37 years ago.
“A friend said that it was a nice place to live, and when you’re 21, you know, it’s like, ‘Oh hey, all right.’ And I always liked the name Athens because it reminded me of Athens, Greece,” Anderson said.
Anderson got a job as a direct support professional and received Category 3 Medication Administration Certification, meaning she was licensed to administer all medications and injections to patients. It took almost 30 years, but she eventually saved up enough money to buy a house.
“And it wasn’t easy for a single (mother), buying a house. But, I looked at a bunch of them, and when I was in that one, I was like, ‘This is the house for my family.’ It felt comfortable, it felt right, and I could envision things,” Anderson said.
Then the health problems began. Anderson said she spent almost a year and a half in one medical facility or another. She had a heart attack and experienced organ failure. She couldn’t work, and it took a while to get Social Security.
The bank foreclosed on her home in July. It wasn’t just Anderson who became homeless as a result — her daughter, daughter’s husband and 6-year-old granddaughter were living with her, along with two emotional support dogs.
“You know, I worked hard for that house. I got it for my family. And to have it ripped away — it’s the only home my granddaughter’s ever known,” Anderson said.
The next day, Anderson contacted Integrated Services from her hotel room. The news wasn’t good.
“There’s no funding right now,” Anderson said. “And I really cried when I found out I had to live in a tent.”
When money for the hotel ran out, Anderson went to camp at Strouds Run. The rest of the family came too, including her granddaughter.
“First couple of weeks, it was easy to tell her, you know, ‘Oh, we’re on an adventure.’ But then it started getting to where it wasn’t fun,” Anderson said.
As for the dogs, Anderson found people to take them in. They’ve since been adopted.
“I still, I cry about them every night. Because I miss them,” Anderson said.
Tension developed between the family members. Eventually, the others left to stay in an unoccupied building in Chauncey. The building was owned by a friend, and while it didn’t have electricity, it at least had a solid roof. They’re still there today.
Anderson said it seems to suit her granddaughter better than the tent.
“At least she’s not like, ‘We’re homeless!’ But at 6 years old, they’re pretty resilient,” she said.
Anderson herself returned to Athens.
Athens lags in solutions for homelessness
Experts have warned for years that dwindling housing stock would lead to an increase in homelessness in southeast Ohio and elsewhere. Today, those effects are bearing out as predicted.
“This summer, we’ve had this rush. And I’m talking, these are — I’m letting them know, these are vulnerable women. I’m getting a lot of middle aged women that, they had a house,” said Schmalenberg.
Hampering Athens’ ability to assist this growing homeless population is the lack of an emergency shelter anywhere in the county. The one shelter that does exist, GoodWorks, stopped providing emergency services some years ago, and space is limited. Meanwhile, individuals forced to camp outside can easily lose touch with service providers, making a difficult problem even harder to solve.
“Trying to find people in the woods — I’ve heard people from Integrated Services talking about the same thing. Having to track down folks who are unhoused, and the service disruption that comes from that,” said Kelly Madewell of the domestic violence shelter My Sister’s Place.
“People are already there. They’re already in those locations,” Madewell said.
Unlike the tents scattered around Athens’ west side, the huts would be secure, fenced in and under constant video surveillance. Occupants — just two to start with — would have a portable toilet for bathroom needs. They could go to The Gathering Place for other needs like laundry and showering.
Schmalenberg said she also liked the Ohio Means Jobs location for its proximity to other services. Hopewell, O’Bleness and the Athens Photographic Project are also on that stretch of West Union. Schmalenberg called it a “mental health corridor.”
A group of local organizations and individuals, collectively known as Athens Co-Create, signed a letter in support of the project. HAPCAP, Hopewell, Athens Metropolitan Housing Authority, Athens City School District and Athens Mayor Steve Patterson were among the signatories.
The Ohio Means Jobs building is owned by the county, not the city. This allowed Schmalenberg to sidestep certain Athens zoning regulations, assuming she had the support of the county commissioners. The commissioners gave her that support this summer: They signed off on a letter requesting a zoning variance for the huts, which was taken up at a meeting of the Athens Planning Commission on Sept. 18.
Some residents attended the meeting to voice concerns about the plan. Schmalenberg said this showed her she needed to do more to communicate with local stakeholders. That’s what she’s been doing ever since.
Commissioner Chris Chmiel said the West Union location seemed like a good fit.
“I think one of the reasons why this spot made sense for Ginger was that it’s accessible,” he said. “Social workers, et cetera, can easily get to these folks and engage with them.”
WOUB spoke with Chmiel on Monday, the day before the commissioners’ meeting. He noted that Athens is falling behind on homelessness.
“I would say that the need in our community right now is more than we are currently providing,” he said.
Commissioner Adkins did not cite any concerns from local landlords, businesses or other residents as a factor in the county’s decision. Instead, he said Athens Job and Family Services Director Jean Demosky had contacted him roughly a month ago about potentially selling the building due to lack of use.
“I wasn’t going to say anything until the director … Jean Demosky came out and let her employees know and talked to them,” Adkins said.
Whatever the reason, the development effectively undoes all of Schmalenberg’s work since this summer. The single biggest hurdle for the project is finding a location; building the huts is easy. Now she has to begin from scratch.
This means Athens is facing another winter with little capacity to shelter its growing homeless population. It’s an issue other counties are also facing, but some have had more success in addressing it.
Plans are still underway to convert the Sunset Motel into an emergency shelter, but HAPCAP does not expect it to open until spring 2026. In addition, the number of beds — roughly 40 — is already lower than the number of unhoused people The Gathering Place served between July and September of this year. That number was 64. It’s unknown how many unhoused people overall live in Athens County.
Coping with the cold
One night in September, Michelle Anderson took out her phone and began to record a video inside her tent. It was 38 degrees, which makes the likely date Sept. 15 or 16, according to a review of the month’s temperatures on AccuWeather — just a few days before Schmalenberg’s September meeting with the Athens Planning Commission.
“Candles aren’t helping too too much tonight,” Anderson said, her voice cracking. “But it’s at least a lot better than out there.”
In the video, Anderson sounds like she is close to tears. At some points, she appears to sob.
Later, she adds: “I just don’t get it. I don’t get why somebody would want to pick on a homeless person living in your tent. It’s just really bothering me.” She pauses for a couple seconds. Then, crying, she concludes, “I just don’t want to be here anymore. I don’t want to be here anymore.”
After she recorded that video, Anderson did what she had been doing for a little while: She uploaded it to her TikTok account. It has since racked up over 95,000 views.
The idea to make TikTok videos came from an acquaintance who suggested Anderson might benefit from video journaling. Anderson said she started doing it as a way to get her feelings off her chest — keeping them bottled up, she said, was “driving me crazy.” But it’s since become a source of connection and inspiration for her.
“I was very new to TikTok, and so I started doing it, and within the first week, it just, whoosh, took off. And it made me feel better, so I wasn’t always crying. And made me feel a little bit stronger, that now I want to try and make a difference,” Anderson said.
The internet can be a negative place, but that hasn’t stopped her.
“Sometimes (people say), ‘Oh, she’s just complaining.’ No, I’m just telling you what I’m feeling and what I’m going through and what other people are going through,” she said.
TikTok has helped Anderson connect with people across the United States.
“Some of us will have a group on FaceTime, and it helps us all,” Anderson said. “In Georgia, California, Florida, and Tennessee and Texas are ones that I regularly keep in touch with.”
In a text, Anderson wrote that some of her followers suggested a way to rig up a new heat source: taking the cardboard center from a roll of toilet paper, covering it with hand sanitizer, putting it in a metal can, and lighting it on fire. Her followers told her this is a safe way to heat the tent for a few hours.
Anderson had been looking forward to upgrading from her tent to one of the Conestoga huts on West Union. With the project stalled, she will likely stay in her tent for the foreseeable future. A local group recently paid for her to spend a few nights in a motel, but that money will run out by next Wednesday.
In the long run, Anderson hopes to find subsidized housing. That search can take years due to the shortage of units and high rents that outstrip what subsidies are available.
Ultimately, Anderson said, she wants to be the one helping again. It’s what she’s accustomed to from her life before homelessness.
“I want to take it further, and I want to see what can be done, you know, with either raising awareness, raising funding, programs,” she said. “It’s kind of lit something in me.”