Hundreds of people in Huntsville don’t have a warm home to go to at the end of the day, and when the temperature drops below freezing, it can be life-threatening for some.
Local organizations like Bearded Warriors and Huntsville Community of Hope often go out to homeless camps, giving out food and other items to those in need, but they want to do more. They say the recent death of David Vann– the man who died Monday night at the Vulcan gas station, is just another push to find a solution for Huntsville’s homeless community.
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President of Bearded Warriors, Ty Oswald, said he met Vann when he was grabbing breakfast one morning a few months ago. Oswald says he bought him a meal and they shared about their time serving in the military.
He said, “We talked about probably twenty minutes about his time in the military, and it’s just one of those, it struck me because you’re looking at someone who served our country, but while he’s looking at me while he’s eating his hashbrowns and you could tell that he was just defeated.”
Huntsville Community of Hope believes one solution is building a village in Huntsville similar to the Community First Village in Texas.
Mandy Probus with Huntsville Community of Hope said, “They are working wonders there, and they’re lifting our homeless brothers and sisters up off the streets in Austin, Texas into a 50 acre master planned development, and it’s very exciting, and it’s definitely a model we think would work well here in Huntsville.”
The village would have tiny homes and campers. People who stay there would work at micro-enterprises in the village and pay rent.
Other local organizations are ready to help.
“We’re working with Mandy and looking at ways our organization could try to help sponsor one of the homes that they’re looking at doing and for a vet, that way we can try one by one to help getting the homeless vet community smaller,” said Oswald.
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