ATHENS, Ohio — A local nonprofit organization and the City of Athens are collaborating to provide an emergency overnight shelter on Columbus Road.
The Gathering Place, a support center for adults experiencing mental health issues or homelessness, announced on Tuesday that it is partnering with the city to use the former Athens Fire Department headquarters at 61 Columbus Road as an “overnight emergency warming center.”
The Athens County Emergency Warming Shelter, which can host up to two dozen, will likely open this upcoming Saturday night, The Gathering Place Executive Director Ginger Schmalenberg said. While it has the space to host up to two dozen people, only a dozen will be available when the shelter opens. Capacity will increase on a rolling basis as volunteers are trained and donations are received.
The National Weather Service predicts more hazardous conditions in the coming days, with potential for more snow, and bitter cold. To follow the shelter’s status, check for updates on The Gathering Place’s and City of Athens’ Facebook pages.
The partnership comes on the heels of this winter’s first major snowfall; parts of the county received up to a foot of snow and the sheriff’s office issued a Level Three snow emergency. Warming centers opened across the county, including at fire departments, the Athens Community Center, Nelsonville City Hall, and at a church in Athens.
The former firehouse currently has a sleeping quarter with a dozen beds with mattresses, showers, and a kitchen, Schmalenberg said. As the winter continues and the overnight emergency warming center expands, cots will be added to accommodate more people in other rooms, such as the fire station’s former living room.
The shelter will open in the evening as a place for people to have a snack, shower and sleep, Schmalenberg said, but will not open during the day, unless under extenuating circumstances.
Athens Safety-Service Director Andy Stone said in an interview Wednesday that the city has been developing the emergency shelter with The Gathering Place over the past week. He said the city was drafting a facility use agreement for the former fire station. The agreement is “going to go through the end of winter, so it’ll go through roughly March 20.”
“For the next probably week and a half, it’s going to be cold enough that there’s really going to be some danger to people staying outside,” Stone said. He praised Schmalenberg and the community’s efforts to keep people warm.
Schmalenberg told the Independent that more than 40 entities have been meeting for over a year at Athens County Foundation’s CO-CREATE collaborative project to discuss housing and shelter needs in the community. She described the need for an emergency shelter for unhoused families and individuals this winter as “unprecedented.”
“In the last couple years, we have really noticed a trend,” Schmalenberg said. “So many people have been living outdoors.”
Schmalenberg said that in 2023, The Gathering Place served a total of 89 unhoused people; in just one quarter of 2024, it served 64. While the number of people served is increasing, their demographics are changing, too.
“What’s really different is that we are starting to see families, and families with perhaps two working parents,” Schmalenberg said. “A lot of it is because there’s just no housing.”
According to World Population Review, Ohio has around 10,654 reported people who are homeless, and 3,214 of those people are in family units.
Schmalenberg said The Gathering Place’s focus in the wintertime is “getting people into other shelters, like Timothy House, maybe the [Hocking Hills] Inspire Shelter in Logan, there’s one in Gallia … or rehab, or sober living.”
Annually, Schmalenberg said The Gathering Place puts away funds for placing unhoused people in hotels during the winter, but this year it saw an exceptional need.
Schmalenberg said that on the night of Jan. 14, The Gathering Place had 55 people staying in hotels. The center spent around $8,000 last week on hotels.
“We’ve never served this many children,” Schmalenberg said. “It’s unprecedented, and we’re trying to help everyone.”
She said the Athens County Foundation is giving The Gathering Place a rapid access grant to help keep people sheltered, and the Athens community has donated around $9,000 already to the project.
“The money goes so quickly and keeping people in hotels is not sustainable,” Schmalenberg said. “But I really don’t think we’ve ever had this [extent of need].”
The shelter at the firehouse is not the end-game.
“Because after this big stint of doing the shelter … what we’re really hoping to do — we already started doing this — [is] working with those [unhoused] individuals to link them up to services,” Schmalenberg said.
More than 100 volunteers have expressed interest in helping at the shelter as of Wednesday, Schmalenberg said. She added that the shelter is seeking volunteers for overnight shifts, who have experience working in social services.
The Gathering Place is collecting monetary donations and volunteer sign-ups and material donations in support of the Athens County Emergency Warming Shelter.
Schmalenberg added in an email that while the Gathering Place is “an organization that serves individuals with a lived experience of a mental illness, trauma or a co-occurring substance use disorder working in recovery. It just so happens that some of the individuals who fit this criteria happen to be unhoused, and as we are a linkage service agency that provides other services and resources, we are adapting to our primary customer’s needs.”
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