Columbus Said Yes - What That Means for Our Unhoused Neighbors

People living in encampments do not have trash pickup. They do not have a secure place to store belongings. They do not have access to a shower. These gaps are not the result of anything the people living outside did or failed to do. They are what happens when a person falls outside the systems the rest of us rely on without thinking about them.

The gaps compound. Waste builds up because there is nowhere for it to go. Belongings get scattered, including the documents someone needs to apply for housing or a job. Conditions worsen, and worsening conditions draw complaints, and complaints often lead to sweeps that move people along and scatter their belongings again. The people living outside are worse off. The surrounding neighborhood is no better off. The pattern repeats.

This week Columbus City Council voted, unanimously, to interrupt that pattern. The $125,000 investment funds trash removal, secure storage, and hygiene access for people living outside on the city's west and south sides. It treats the missing infrastructure as the actual problem, which is a meaningful shift in how the city is choosing to respond.

Make-A-Day joined to speak in support. Councilwoman Melissa Green chaired the effort through the Health, Human Services and Equity Committee. As she put it, the legislation is not about accepting homelessness as inevitable. It is about refusing to abandon people while the city works to end it.

That framing matters to me and to the work we do at Make-A-Day. The people living outside on Columbus's west and south sides are our neighbors. They want to live somewhere clean. They want their trash taken away. They want to hold onto the things that matter to them. This investment meets those needs now, while Columbus keeps building toward the housing that ends the need for encampments in the first place.

There is more work ahead, and I am glad the city is in it.