Brian Wellmeier
It’s a strange thing to cover the northeast Georgia region for more than a year without living in the community – not by choice, but as the result of a lack of housing options altogether.
Reporting on this growing crisis and experiencing it firsthand, though, has for me unveiled a sort of parallax of the issue. One angle is that I don’t have the convenience of living close to where I work, since I earn “too much” to qualify for one brand new complex with ample affordable units, while simultaneously being told I don’t bring in enough income to even be considered a candidate for another one of the very few options available to me.
The number of people without adequate or affordable shelter I interviewed for the housing piece – the ones that wouldn’t go on the record but were living in hotels, campers and in their vehicles – was far higher than the two or three who appeared in the story itself.
I feel their struggle, but even though I may be able to empathize with them to some extent, I can’t feel it like they do.
We all recognize the existence of this crisis within our community, but when it comes time to speak where our government officials meet at least once a month, nobody does.
My theory here: Anyone who won’t acknowledge the barren state of affordable housing in this region would have to be blind. When the majority of those people are also homeowners, the willingness to act takes time out of their lives to speak on behalf of others – those without a voice or anywhere to go.
From the other side of the parallax intersects here with the notion that no one really knows (nor did I, prior to reporting on the issue) the sheer desperation some of our fellow humans in this region endure in the cascading reverberations of the current crisis (not enough housing and little-to-none that’s affordable). There’s a list of people too long either forced to live in dilapidation or nowhere at all – some with families and small children.
Still, after trying to broadcast their story from the trenches of that world, I understand my situation is unlike those actively experiencing actual homelessness in our community, in that it’s more of an inconvenience than a dire matter of necessity. The gas I have to pay driving nearly 50 miles every day may be a burden. But at the end of the day, I have a home to go to when the work day ends.
Seeing folks in such desperate circumstances throughout my reporting revealed to me that, instead of griping about my own dilemma, I should be thankful instead.
Appreciate the fact you have a place to live, I tell myself, because so many of our fellow humans here in Georgia and across the nation do not.
And for this, we all should be thankful.
I appreciated the influx of positive feedback I received from members of the community – those who recognize the current crisis.
And I urge every one of them to contact their local leaders, attend council and commission meetings and call on our leaders to do more to incentivize and attract potential developers, anything it takes, to bring the addition of more, much-needed units affordable to all socioeconomic levels, until there is finally a place for everyone.
As others have noted, we talk a lot about economic growth and expanding the local workforce and tax revenue through industrial development, but that can’t happen if people don’t have a place to live.
Brain Wellmeier is a staff writer for The Northeast Georgian. Reach him at bwellmeier@TheNortheastGeorgian.com or 706-778-4215.