To the editor:
Incredulity quickly turned to frustration and disappointment last Thursday as we learned of the news report on WOUB concerning the abrupt obstruction of Ginger Schmalenberg’s months-long efforts to provide some bit of relief from the winter cold to the unhoused of Athens.
Schmalenberg, who is made aware daily of the plight of the unhoused in Athens through her work at the Gathering Place, worked tirelessly with many stakeholders, including the Athens County Commissioners, to provide unhoused Athens County residents temporary shelter in simple Conestoga huts behind the Ohio Means Jobs building on West Union Street. Unbeknownst to Schmalenberg and at least one of the commissioners, Commissioner Charlie Adkins, who had originally signed off on the shelters, announced at Tuesday’s meeting that he had arranged to sell the building and, thereby, nullified the agreement to house the shelters.
This incident raises many questions. As residents of Athens County and life-long Democrats, we are sorry to have recently voted to reelect Adkins to his position. How does he have sole authority to make such a decision? Is the county commission so dysfunctional that a single member can sell off county property, especially after agreeing to providing space to a nonprofit?
Perhaps a more fundamental question, however, relates to the turn away from the compassionate concern for the common people. Who gets to decide who is entitled to receive compassion?
Brent Hayes asked, “Are these folks within our county, or are we taking care of other counties’ potential problems?”
When it comes to caring for people, it matters little if they are homeless as an Athens County resident, or as a human being freezing in the cold. It might be interesting to find out where someone is born and bred and then determine if that person deserves to be cared for but is that compassionate? And how many of the leaders in this community, the ones making decisions, the ones we voted for, were born and bred in Athens County? Does that give them the right to say someone in need does not deserve help? Perhaps that is not what the question raised intended, but it is noteworthy that much of the county population encompasses those who moved here to go to OU decades ago and then decided to stay. Does that make some more privileged than another who also moved here and lost a job due to health and other challenges?
There are solutions to meeting the needs of the unhoused and they are temporary just like the situations that bring someone to becoming homeless. Just like elected officials, we are all temporary and vulnerable. We are all doing the best we can and sometimes we need help.
As we saw in the recent national elections, the Democratic presidential candidate distinguished herself from President Biden primarily by ignoring the working class and courting the wealthy. Sadly, Charlie Adkins is not alone in his neglect of those in need. One has only to look at the Athens City Council to see a shift over time away from traditional values, a recent example being the Athens City administration’s unilateral decision to end its support for the Athens-Hocking Recycling Center, shifting local money and jobs out of the county to an out-of-town, for-profit corporation. As we have seen billionaires buying the political candidates of both parties on the national level, we might ask who is funding the campaigns of candidates in what has become our one-party county and city. In the meantime, we wonder if it is time to leave the Democratic Party and cast our future votes for those who are committed to a more compassionate and progressive agenda, one that focuses on the wellbeing of all of us.
Gene Ammarell
Bonnie Edwards
Athens, OH 45701
