Beth McKee-Huger: Everybody's got to be somewhere (2024)

Everybody’s got to be somewhere ... where they aren’t told to move along.

The Supreme Court recently heard oral arguments as to whether it is cruel and unusual punishment to treat sleeping outside as a crime if there are no shelter beds available for people who cannot get into housing. This doesn’t make sense to me.

First, it is not fair to kick children and parents, women and men out of their “spots” and prosecute them for something they have no control over: the housing market.

Second, it isn’t a good use of public resources to tie up law enforcement and fill expensive jails instead of building housing.

But I am not the Supreme Court. It’s not my decision. My own decision is to do whatever I can for our community to create enough housing options for everybody to be somewhere safe and not get evicted because the rent is more than the paycheck or disability check. We can do it.

How? Community will. We’ve had too much of community “won’t.”

To create more places for people to live, let’s start conversations about what kind of homes fit family budgets and neighborhood values, listening respectfully to neighbors and forming trust, opening hearts and inspiring creativity. Without that mutual understanding, developers often encounter opposition and neighborhoods either have something imposed on them or nothing gets built — no investment, no homes for new friends in the neighborhood.

As neighborhoods, builders and allies, let’s look at positive examples in our country and in our own community and say, “If they can do that, maybe we can, too.”

Recycling land and buildings — which already have water and sewer connections — turns underused spaces into homes and economic viability. We can explore the interests of local government with surplus property, businesses with empty buildings, and faith communities with places they rarely use. We can urge our city, state, and federal governments to invest more in construction and rental assistance to cover the gap between the actual cost of building homes and family paychecks.

Then, with cooperation and creativity, we can turn our best ideas into reality, dedicating the time, land, and money to build homes and restore lives. None of us can just expect Santa Claus to deliver everything on our wish list.

I am excited that those partnerships are multiplying:

Faith communities and builders are teaming up to respect neighborhoods, build quality housing with amenities, manage it fairly, and maintain it for long-term sustainability. The Greensboro City council approved funding for Yanceyville Place Apartments (a partnership of the Episcopal Church of the Holy Spirit and Mills Construction) and Vandalia Acres (Affordable Housing Management) to strengthen their tax credit applications for additional apartments.

Tenants and their allies presented their case to the City Council for funding TEAM (Tenant Education Advocacy Mediation) to provide legal counsel for tenants in eviction court. Greensboro’s eviction rate is among the nation’s highest, partly because incomes are low and 90% of tenants don’t have legal counsel. In turn, eviction results in greater poverty as tenants lose jobs and belongings when locked out and have to start over again with evictions on their records. The council listened and agreed that preventing homelessness is key.

Health and mental health deteriorate when people are living on the edge, either outdoors or on verge of eviction, without the stability or resources to manage chronic illness. The human and financial costs of hospitalization and incarceration and foster care far outweigh the cost of creating safe places for medically fragile people experiencing homelessness. Guilford County is planning to open an addiction treatment center for mothers to live with their children and we urgently need additional creative partnerships to protect the lives of our most vulnerable neighbors.

So, look for promising examples and say, “If they can do that, maybe we can, too.” But don’t stop there, with words. We need to listen to the people closest to the need and actively invest the time, money, land and community will to make it actually happen.

Everybody’s got to be somewhere. Let’s make that “somewhere” a good home.