NEWTON COUNTY— The Newton County Board of Commissioners voted unanimously to table a decision on contributing up to $15,000 to a jointly-funded warming shelter with the City of Covington.
The item was on the agenda for Tuesday’s meeting, during which the commissioners spent several minutes discussing both the need for a shelter and their wariness of the proposed route.
Despite the tabling, the commissioners each voiced support for providing this service in the winter months, but want to ensure the venture is undertaken in the best possible manner.
“I’m very concerned with us partnering with the City of Covington if we don’t know what it's going to look like, where these unsheltered individuals are going to be living, what conditions they're going to be living in,” said District 2 Commissioner Demond Mason.
Mason and District 4 Commissioner J.C. Henderson each explained that feedback on last year’s warming shelter indicated that it left much to be desired.
“It was stated to me that they had porta-potties out in the front,” Mason said. “It was stated to me that, of course, there were not livable conditions. It was stated to me that they were actually sending people from this warming shelter to another warming shelter so that they can eat and so that they can take showers at a different facility outside of the one where the monies were being spent.
Henderson, seeming to be familiar with the location, called it a “little garage” off Washington Street.
“Some people told me they were getting kind of cold in there,” Henderson said. “We need for them to be somewhere, but I think it needs to be in livable conditions. In other words, I won’t put somebody somewhere I wouldn’t stay.”
Newton County and the City of Covington have partnered to implement warming shelters in previous winter seasons. This included utilizing the Washington Street “garage” that Henderson referred to, as well as other emergency shelters during particularly cold nights.
But both entities have also contributed to warming shelters separately in the past, sometimes partnering with local community organizations or churches instead of one another.
District 5 Commissioner LeAnne Long brought up this idea of leaning on the community to help rather than making it wholly government-funded. She also noted wanting to see the current proposed site before voting to contribute the money, having never seen it herself.
Long also said that she had recently spoken with a law enforcement officer who warned her that these shelters can attract more than just the people already in the county.
“He was telling me that we have to be careful because if the county’s funding these shelters, that they can bring people from Atlanta if we have room in our shelters,” Long said. “And he said, ‘You do not want that at all.’...They’re going to pass Rockdale County cause they don’t have one, so they’re going to come here. They’re going to be dropped off in the community, and they’re not going to be picked back up.”
District 1 Commissioner Stan Edwards echoed this statement, stating that the commissioners need to go about providing assistance in an intentional way.
“I feel like we’re commanded to help the orphan, the widow and the poor, but I don’t think we’re commanded to create an environment that will be unhealthy for all, less healthy than even the cold,” Edwards said.
With all the wary discourse, Interim District 3 Commissioner Andre Cooper amended his initial motion to approve, changing it to table the item until the board’s next meeting.
In the two weeks until that meeting, Interim County Manager James Brown will look further into the matter and provide the commissioners with the requested specifics about the location and its characteristics.
“I have heard some concerns as well, but I know we do need a warming shelter,” Cooper said. “...It is needed.”
