Mayor Harvey Ward clearly ruffled a few feathers in the building across the street from City Hall. When talking about downtown GNV’s homeless problems the Mayor called out unnamed public officials for doing too little, too late.
“I will speak briefly to other community leaders who may be watching” Ward said as the commission scrambled to find an extra $700,000 to help ease the tent encampments springing up downtown. “We need you in this process. We don’t need you to send your thoughts and prayers, we need you to send checks, we need you to step up. If you’re an elected official in Alachua County, you are partially responsible for this. This ain’t just a City of Gainesville issue.”
This prompted Ken Cornell to read aloud a memo he wrote at a subsequent Alachua County Commission meeting. Basically, Cornell said downtown’s homeless problems really are the City’s problems, not the county’s. And the very fact that GNV commissioners were able to come up with $700,000 proves that the city has plenty of money to spend on the homeless.
Oh, and by the way, the county was apparently duped into giving Grace Marketplace half a million dollars last year “to make up for cuts from the city.”
“While we were reluctant to pick up the City’s responsibility, the Mayor made it clear that no more City funding was available. This has been frustrating as we have witnessed the City fund new programs since the Mayor’s statement.”
But that’s not going to stand, Cornell said.
“The County views this GRACE funding as a one-time request. It is clear now that the City does have funding sources to deal with these issues,” Cornell read.
Alachua County to Grace: Drop dead.
Make no mistake, supporting Grace is the smartest investment both the City and the County can make to confront homelessness in Alachua County. In the space of just ten years Grace has served nearly 20,500 people, found permanent housing for nearly 3,000, served upwards of 2 million meals and reduced the number of homeless in this community by 40 percent.
Nothing the City or the County has done, or will do, can come close to equaling Grace’s accomplishments.
GRACE, by the way, is the non-profit in GNV that does all of the front line intervention – providing on the scene counseling and services as well as temporary beds to the homeless.
But funding such interventions is not the county’s problem because, Cornell insists, the county’s role is to provide permanent housing solutions, not temporary ones, to get homeless people off the streets.
Which is the very definition of dreaming the impossible dream.
To be fair, it’s not like the county isn’t doing anything for the homeless. It bought a couple of old motels that will, one day, be renovated to provide units to house the unhoused.
The county has owned one of those motels for more than three years now. And so far the only improvement made has been to put up a fence to keep the homeless out.
Whatever the timeline, it’s very likely that the county’s solutions for permanent housing won’t come close to meeting the needs of the estimated 700 homeless in our community.
But rest assured that the county will, sooner or later, provide X-number of units to house x-number of the unhoused.
That is, unless residents and business owners in the vicinity of the motels turn out and object to having “those people” living near them.
Listen, we already know that county commissioners are willing to derail affordable housing projects when the NIMBYs come out. The homeless don’t vote.
But really, Commissioner Cornell, quibbling over who is to blame for what seems rather petty compared to the enormity of the problem.
The County Commission stood silent and smug while the Legislature hijacked GNV’s public utility, which will deprive GNV of millions of dollars in revenue – some of which would surely have gone to ease homelessness.
The least the County Commission can do now is show a little, um, grace and join the City in helping to fund the full range of services necessary to confront homelessness in our community.
FreeGNV 
Reading this reminded me of how important it is to donate to Grace (which I try to do as often as my paycheck will allow). Thank you for the reminder and for keeping us focused on our city and county neighbors.
It may be impossible to eradicate homelessness, but that doesn’t mean we can’t reduce their suffering. Grace Marketplace goes a long way to reducing real suffering in our most vulnerable neighbors.