LICKING COUNTY, Ohio — The United Way of Licking County hosted a community discussion Tuesday night to discuss solutions for housing and homelessness. About 180 people attended the event held at a hotel in Newark.
"Collectively if we're all moving in the same direction, we can accomplish hard things,” Deb Dingus, executive director of United Way of Licking County, said.
Nonprofit executives, public officials, faith leaders and volunteers within the community were brought together for this discussion.
"Columbus does it well. We're trying to learn from that and bring solutions here,” Mike Schmidt, president of the Licking County Foundation, said.
Dingus said their hope was to bring people with differing opinions together to have productive and positive conversations.
"If people don't have something to eat and they don't have a bed to sleep in, they can't begin to work on many other things in their life,” Dingus said.
Dingus said the goals of the discussion included determining ways to bring more affordable housing options to Licking County, working on supporting current shelters and creating new ones, and working on creating a more effective housing system.
"I had so much hope for the community to turn out big and it did,” Bill Cost Jr., a Newark City Councilmember, said.
Cost attended the event along with several other members of the Newark City Council.
Last week, council members passed an ordinance banning camping in public spaces. Cost voted against the ban. Many community members said they opposed the ordinance for the impact it would have on the homeless population.
"Putting a layer of threat around potential fines or jail just adds another level of trauma when our goal is to help individuals,” Dingus said.
But some added they appreciated the willingness of several elected officials who took the time to show up and be part of the conversation Tuesday night.
"What stuck out to me was that we really have a lot of folks representing all different areas of our city and of our county who are interested in mobilizing a solution. I don't think I was aware of that before,” Celia Kendall, CEO of Beacon 360 Management, said.
"They love this city too. You wouldn't serve if you didn't really, really want to be part of this and they're open to new ideas and I'm just thrilled to see them here,” Cost said.