Advocacy results in shelter for those experiencing homelessness
COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) -- Community advocates say Columbus is facing a housing crisis.
Last year, a point-in-time count showed unsheltered homelessness almost doubled from 2022 to 2023, and the city is just weeks away from getting new numbers.
However, one Columbus mutual aid group is celebrating a win after years of advocating. Almost 30 people living behind a south Columbus mobile home park now have a warm place to call home after mutual aid group Heer to Serve has spent years advocating for funding to move them.
One woman said it’s the first time in 10 years she’s had a stable roof over her head.
"I'm excited but also scared to death that it was all going to be pulled away," Amanda King, who lived behind Fairlane Mobile Home Park, said. "We just learned to insulate real well and we struggled a lot of the time trying to keep propane for heat. A lot of it was just candles and body heat and just had to work together. It was horrible."
That began to change when Emily Myers jumped in. She found Heer to Serve to support unhoused people in the city.
"These are my neighbors, too,” Myers said. “I live in this area and so when I go out every single day with my kids, like, these are the same friends I'm seeing and so I told them, I made a promise. I said 'I'm going to get you inside'.”
She pushed the city for funding to make that happen.
"We continued our advocacy and just continuing to ask the hard questions, being direct, you know, how are we going to get from point A to point B, just consistently and not giving up even when I really, really, really felt like, you know, not very hopeful," Myers said.
Now Heer to Serve, along with the help of the Community Shelter Board, has moved 27 people inside a hotel. It doesn’t end there: there are plans to find them permanent housing and jobs.
"The funding has been a really important part of winter funding that is provided from the city,” Community Shelter Board Chief Program Officer Steve Skovensky said. “You know, there's a heightened urgency during the winter to get people inside. One of the important principles is involving camp residents in the planning and I really appreciated that Emily brought in a couple of members of the encampment to be part of our meetings. And I think that is so important as we look at how can we design something that's going to be as successful as possible."
It’s giving a home to people who would otherwise be out in the cold.
"I am now in a hotel,” King said. “I have a roof over my head, I have running water. I have lights. It's a miracle.”
King said that down the road, she plans to volunteer with Heer to Serve so she can help give back to others who are in the position she was in.
"While we love this work, and we will continue to do it, we will still continue to advocate for everybody that doesn't have this option that needs it," Myers said.
"The key is housing,” Skovensky said. “We want to support people in getting into permanent housing solutions.”
This is something the Community Shelter Board has seen work and hopes to continue. A few years ago, the board helped another community group move an encampment into a shelter. Now 10 out of the 13 who were moved have permanent housing.