Finally — finally — the Hamilton County Commission put aside most of its acrimonious pandering and voted unanimously Wednesday to put $50,000 toward helping rehouse the families put out on the street just before Thanksgiving when the Budgetel in East Ridge was closed by court order.
To say they approved the help "unanimously" -- matching another $50,000 forwarded unanimously the day before by the Chattanooga City Council -- sounds kinder than the commission's move really was.
Some commissioners indicated the folks made homeless by the hotel's closure didn't want to work or brought the problem on themselves. Some suggested panhandlers from Knoxville might move here just to get in a free hotel room. Some argued that Chattanooga was hot-boxing them into helping. At least one said he would support the effort only if Chattanooga's money was spent first. Another asked why the city of East Ridge wasn't being asked for money. (Never mind that East Ridge put its money toward the ousters in the first place.)
Here's but one example:
"I will support this resolution, but I don't want to, and I'll tell you why. Nobody said anything about how many jobs are open in Hamilton County -- every [direction] you drive," said Commissioner Warren Mackey after hearing presentations from two Chattanooga council members, two members of the Chattanooga Regional Homeless Coalition and County Mayor Weston Wamp.
Actually there had been quite a bit said about jobs.
Every one of the presenters had pointed out that almost all of the adults ousted from the Budgetel had jobs. It was how they paid the $200-plus a week they spent to have a roof over their heads there. And many had prepaid their rent, just as most of us do. The Budgetel hasn't refunded the money, according both to coalition workers and to court filings.
Worse still, according to the coalition, 50% of the people who were turned out lost their income -- some because they worked within walking distance of the Budgetel and now, put up in hotels across town and without cars, can no longer get to work. Another 40% have seen their income significantly reduced.
Wamp told commissioners he had even called some friends managing other hotels in East Ridge and gotten a commitment for about 20 rooms to help some of the people who still have jobs in that community. He suggested some of the commissioners might reach out as well. And he asked the commission not to demean the former Budgetel residents by referring to them as "homeless."
Wamp told them he and Schools Superintendent Justin Robertson were talking about in the future repurposing the soon-to-close former CSLA school as a low-barrier homeless shelter where families with children could find temporary rooms. But he stressed that can't help the Budgetel folks, whose situation "seems to be changing pretty rapidly" as money runs out for their current rooms.
Commissioner David Sharpe put a point on the commissioners' ramblings -- particularly when questions arose about the school-as-shelter possibility.
"If I didn't know better, I'd think we're just trying to be convinced to vote no on this. I want to bring this back from the muddy water to the topic at hand. We're talking about 110 rooms for 269 people, including 106 children, who were evicted from their homes ..."
He put a strong emphasis on the word "evicted."
"These people had a home that they were paying for, and many of which lost their deposits and the rent that they had paid. Many of these individuals were walking to work from their residence, and as a result of the lack of transportation and the proximity of their residences, they lost that employment as well.
"If these individuals want to live wherever it is they want to live and the Homeless Coalition can help them find permanent residence in that location, then all the better. And I'm sure that's being taken under consideration. What we're talking about here today is to help these individuals and the Homeless Coalition to find new permanent residences over the course of the next three months ...
"We're just triaging the system through the holidays to allow for replacement ... We're not talking about a school and all this other mess ... The issue at hand is these individuals, including 106 children, 11 days before Christmas. And I believe in my heart that we should help them."
When the commission descended into quibbles from Greg Martin about where the money would come from, and if the county's "process" was being followed correctly, along with Steve Highlander's suggestion that a vote could wait until next week's meeting four days before Christmas, Sharpe intervened again.
"The proposal here is for this to be funded from the county's fund balance, also known as the rainy day fund, also known as our emergency fund. If 106 children facing being put on the streets before Christmas is not an emergency, I don't know what is," he said.
"This is a crisis, self-imposed, here in Hamilton County, that we have the ability, the authority, the wherewithal to address today. It is my ask that we grant peace of mind to children and families in this holiday season," Sharpe concluded.
After more than an hour and 10 minutes of babble, the commissioners at last voted. Despite a few long silences during the roll call, the measure passed.
You wouldn't think it should be so hard.