PICKAWAY – During Circleville council meeting last night, Council woman Katie Logan Hedges spoke on a controversial topic of homelessness issues that have been brought up downtown recently and what local groups are doing to solve this issue.
“I am grateful in some ways that this has been more in our face recently so we all can come together to come up with ideas suggestions to help solve this issue,” said Hedges, “I think its widely believed that we owe it to the homeless population to help long term assistance, either it be a shelter or access to resources. But we also owe it to downtown businesses and patrons that we are not having safety issues also. We have had complains of urinating and defecating on private properties, loitering and littering throughout downtown regularly.”
A homeless coalition has met twice so far in the last few weeks talking about what the community can do to help. This coalition is made up of PICCA, United Way, Circleville Mayor, and other interested entities are working for solutions.
“The problem is Rome wasn’t built in a day,” said Hedges,” There are positive things happening, but its taking some time.”
Hedges says that the coalition has some with some long term goals so far like emergency heating housing during freezing nights below 35 degrees for overnights only. She did mention that two shelters do exist in this community already for homeless for men and women while we wait for more long term solutions.
Downtown homelessness is growing, and I think we can do something, not meeting just city council but everyone.”
To hear all the full audio and discussion click below. (Warning there is some feedback in the phone audio conference this couldn’t be helped but this is an important issue and wanted to share)
