Salvation Army set to build homes for 17 homeless Columbus families

COLUMBUS, Ga. (WRBL) — The Salvation Army hosted a groundbreaking ceremony March 5 to celebrate its new facility for homeless families — Center of Hope.

“Our homeless families are winners today,” says City Manager of Columbus Isaiah Hugley when delivering his speech at the ceremony.

According to Hugley, in 2022 approximately fifteen families per week called seeking emergency shelter, while the Muscogee County school district designated 967 families as homeless.

However, this project comes as a result of a study done in 2017 which found a lack of resources for homeless families with children was a need of the community. The facility will be 21,000 square feet with 17 apartments that will allow families to transition from homelessness to self-sufficiency in a four to six month time period.

Services provided by this program include but are not limited to housing, educational and workforce training with partners like Goodwill and Columbus Tech., school enrollment for children, providing appropriate work attire and making referrals to community partners to clients with physical, emotional, or addiction problems.

Mayor Skip Henderson told WRBL,“ Columbus is what Columbus is because of public private partnership. This is a classic example of a group of people who see a need and went about working out a way to try and satisfy that need.  And as a result, we’re going to have some folks who are having a hard time finding housing stay here.”

This project was in part by the community reinvestment department of the city. Using HOME APR money, the department was able to allocate 1.1 million dollars to the creation of the facility.

The two-story building will be replacing two 50-year-old buildings that the Salvation Army once built in the 1950’s to house 50 homeless men.  The new facility intends to house families, single mothers, and children.

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