Help To Save a Home

Sunday Reads – Aug. 1, 2021

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Hard choices on the horizon, but help available

The federal moratorium on evictions expired last night, and now 10,000 families in Chatham County who are behind on rent payments face hard decisions. On Monday, 286 eviction cases will proceed immediately in the county’s magistrate court. Those who lose their homes will face a very tough housing market with fewer places to live and higher rents.

Beyond the striking national numbers in the millions, there are 125,000 families in Coastal Georgia now living on the edges of their household budgets. Area agencies, like the United Way of Coastal Empire and the Economic Opportunity Authority, have been working to help more families than ever avoid eviction and loss of utilities since the early months of the pandemic. Federal grants still are available to people who may qualify for rental assistance, providing some aid also to beleaguered landlords.

Jacqueline GaNun, a reporting fellow for The Current, looks at the current situation in Coastal Georgia for assistance and talks to people are making tough spending decisions as the coronavirus pandemic stretches on.

In related stories, we have two Working Together stories from our northern neighbor, Charleston. Both focus on solving challenges Coastal Georgia towns know well: growing the housing inventory and working out legal barriers of homelessness that affect a person’s ability to find a home.

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As for COVID…

Since last week, Savannah has reinstated a mask mandate to battle the spreading delta variant of the coronavirus. School mask mandates along the coast are mixed, but we now know that it’s as contagious as the chickenpox and we can all spread it equally. Vaccines are available right now throughout Coastal Georgia — they’ll bring it to you or give you a ride. Here’s the info. The little ones can’t get vaccines yet but they can sure get the virus. Here’s a message for their adults: Mask up.

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And the Capitol attack hearings

If you had to work through the U.S. House Select Committee hearings on the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, you likely missed the gut-wrenching testimony of the Capitol Police officers who were caught up in the violence. Later in the week, Congress passed a $2.1 billion bill to fund some of the long-needed equipment for the police and pay for Capitol security. For some insight on how it feels right now to be a Capitol Police officer, you can listen to an NPR interview from Friday with Sgt. Aguilino Gonell about the attack, his injuries from the violence and how he see things. Gonell is an Army veteran.

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For your second cup

It’s been pretty hot outside, but few topics are heating up like redrawing the state’s voting districts. Last week, the legislative panel in charge of the decennial process came to Coastal Georgia to hear thoughts and concerns from residents. It was one of a handful of stops across the country’s 8th-most populous state (plus a virtual meeting on Friday) for people to see and talk to the panel.

The isolated stop in Brunswick for southeast Georgia, away from the main population center of Savannah ignited the ire of representatives from Chatham County, arguably the one spot outside of metro Atlanta where the state’s made massive infrastructure investments in the form of Georgia Ports. The stop, by design, also signals who’s in charge of the reapportionment — the state’s GOP-led legislature. Savannah, by any accounting, is not a Republican stronghold, and Glynn County is. The Current was there to see and hear the conversations, which have been fiery in other venues.

If you are looking for trending topics throughout the public “listening” phase for redistricting, the top one — with a capital T — will be Transparency. The second would be Fairness, followed closely by Community. Georgia Public Broadcasting and the Georgia News Lab have assembled an explainer piece on the remapping and the lack of transparency built in to the process. It’s worth a read just to understand more about what you will not get to see as your neighborhood voting districts are redrawn. The shadowed process is one that can be open — if the legislature chooses to do so.

The granular 2020 Census numbers required for the new maps are due shortly. One nonprofit, nonpartisan group has used an immense amount of data to recommend a transparent process to reapportion the state and its myriad entities and communities. For your afternoon chill, check out Fair Districts GA to find a trove of historical data, explanations and primers on all things redistricting. The group clearly explains “cracked cities” and the basic math of gerrymandering. It lets you decide what you’d do if you were tasked to set new boundaries for representative districts.

Enjoy.

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