The Greensboro City Council voted unanimously to allocate an additional $100,000 to provide hotel rooms for the homeless at the Tuesday, Dec. 5 meeting.
From the vote it would appear the members of the City Council were in complete agreement on joining with Guilford County and High Point, each having agreed to allocate $100,000. Despite voting in favor of the allocation, Councilmember Zack Matheny, whose day job is president and CEO of Downtown Greensboro Inc., had a lot to say about “throwing another hundred grand” at the homeless issue.
Matheny called it “another Band-Aid” and said the City Council needed a strategic approach to housing people who need shelter.
Matheny said that he attended the meeting where the decision was made for Guilford County, High Point and Greensboro to each allocate $100,000 for hotel rooms and that there was no planning, just a conversation where representatives of each entity said they’d put in $100,000 if everybody else did.
Matheny said, “I mean, folks, a year and a half and last week it was like, what, 14 degrees and we’ve been talking about this for a year and a half and the best response we can come up with is let’s just put another hundred grand toward a Band-Aid. It’s embarrassing.”
Matheny said that it would make a lot more sense to rent back the Regency Inn, which the city is in the process of selling, and house people there. Matheny noted that the Regency Inn has been vacant since the city “kicked people out in March,” and that rather than spending $100,000 to house people for about 28 days it would make more sense to use the Regency.
In November 2021, the City Council loaned Partnership Homes $3 million to purchase the Regency, which was supposed to be renovated to provide permanent supportive housing, but the city used it as a winter shelter until the renovation could take place. That deal fell through when Partnership Homes was unable to acquire the $10 million needed for renovation and the city is in the process of contracting with Sept Up on Second Inc. to use the facility for permanent supportive housing, but according to Matheny the facility is currently vacant.
Mayor Nancy Vaughan said the Regency had building code issues and would not meet code right now.
Matheny’s response was to find the money to make the necessary repairs. He said, “We can find the money. We always do.”
Teach the homeless a trade / skill and put them to work. If they have health or mental problems, provide treatment. Consider providing treatment instead of handouts.
The Homeless issue has been in Greensboro for years, but since we have no visionaries or problem solvers on our City Council or City Staff the issue just gets worse! Where were you City leaders as the Hebrew Academy sat vacant for years? Don’t you think that facility is more worthy for use to solve America’s and Greensboro’s struggling homeless problems than housing illegal immigrants?
“Baby it is cold outside” Bet the homeless population would like to go South for the winter? Load up the buses!
Jim Donaldson
Can you say SNAFU? Typical but hey, it’s your tax dollars they are whizzing into the wind. Keep on voting the same old same old…you will be reading this same story next year at this time. What fools we have as a council and even more so the residents who vote them into office.
“Give me a fish and I eat today, teach me to fish and I eat forever “
WILL OUR CITY ELECTED LEADERS EVER UNDERSTAND THIS SIMPLE STATEMENT?
Find these low class lazy people jobs and make them work for a living. If they can stand up and walk they can work and make a living like the rest of us citizens. They are lazy worthless creatures who don’t want to work. Let them starve. They don’t deserve to be helped.
Cracks me up that conservatives solution to homelessness is to tell people to stop be homeless.
Cracks me up that you get to breathe good air chris
Instead of “Handing out” $100,000 for hotel rooms, use this money to help them find jobs.
Most people need shelter and security as a first step to rejoining the working class. Others also need to overcome addictions as a second step. Some then need mental health treatment. ThEN the can rejoin the working class.
How about you throw it to the taxpayers, that’s where you got it?
Thank you Councilmnan Matheny. This happens every single winter…same old stuff. What hotel is going to want the homeless to stay all winter. You know the Downtown hotels won’t. Where will they go and how will they get there. The issue of homelessness is more than a place to stay on a cold night.