Chillicothe — The founder of a local homeless advocacy group asked to share her prepared address that she was not able to read in the March 3rd Chillicothe Council review session.
Linda Hoover, founder of So. Ohio HART (Homeless Advocacy Response Team), has been vocal in emails while the “Anti-Camping” proposed ordinance has been discussed by council in the last few weeks.
She caught me at the end of the council session at the Main Library Annex. I obliged her by interviewing her, and including her two emails and PDF statement – all below.
The Southern Ohio Homeless Advocacy Response Team (HART) has a Facebook page.
Chillicothe Council heard more than 90 minutes of facts and opinions on their proposed “Anti-Camping” ordinance and the state of the homeless in Chillicothe in a review session on March 3rd, 2025. See my other story “Big Response to Chillicothe Council’s Public Forum on the Homeless and Anti-Camping Ordinance” and three other videos from the gathering.
Hoover’s statement, from her PDF:
Hoover’s additional emails, slightly edited for clarity:
Kevin
Thank you for taking my statement tonight. You asked why this matters so much to me. I work in housing, but I talk to and assist people who are homeless daily as well.
Most feel that no one cares about their situation, their survival and many have told me they feel the people they encounter just wish they would disappear. Many have told me they wish they could just die and not be a problem to society anymore.
Many I’ve been able to talk to, get them connected with mental health providers, community housing programs, Permanent Supportive Housing. And still I’ve seen too many die because they were forced to live on the streets. Illness, disability, depression, suicide. So it matters to me. It is a personal issue to me.
I’ve talked to many of them, they’ve told me their stories, we’ve talked about their demons and their battles. They’ve told me their dreams.
I’ve watched many get a little assistance they needed and get housed and turn their lives around. Thank God there are more success stories than there are tragedies, or I don’t know that I could continue doing what I do everyday…every day! If [only] it were the other way around.
To me the biggest frustration with Council is their reluctance to reach outside their own little bubble to consult with other cities who have faced similar homeless issues, and have put workable, cost-effective solutions in place.
These people aren’t going to trek across the county to sit across a table to share their best practices. We have Zoom, Google Meet, and so many means of communication to get people at the same table working out solutions. I know we are a small, rural town…we have the technology. Use it!
Let’s bring people to the table who have worked out the messy details and pick up at the point they were successful. If we need to fine tune it after we implement it, there will still be a lot of room for improvement and growth.
Chillicothe has always been a town that cared about each other. To me it is beyond understanding how we could even consider putting “laws” into place that penalize people for merely trying to survive.
I feel good about the interaction at the meeting tonight. Only one dissenting voice that really was out of touch with the whole issue. It was promising that everyone in the room expressed their opinion this ordinance is the wrong way for our town to move, and that the ordinance should be withdrawn.
Focus on bringing to the table service providers, business leaders, mental health and recovery services, social workers, city officials…people who have viable ideas that can be discussed and REAL PLANS created, not punitive legislations.
Thank you Kevin
Linda Hoover
So. Ohio HART
220-267-0588
And her second email, to the public:
I want to thank Council President Kevin Shoemaker for setting up the Review Meeting last night. I was encouraged hearing all the positive comments supporting the withdrawal of the proposed Ordinance 24-117.
After the meeting wound down last night, I had a chance to talk to Kevin Coleman. He asked me why this issue means so much to me. There are so many reasons but I’ll share a few with you.
I’m not so unaware of the possibility that I and nearly every one in that room last night is one paycheck, one illness, one death of a financial provider, or other devastating loss away from being in the same situation. Especially today with natural disasters, mass firings of career professionals, withdrawal of public funds. It could happen to anyone of us.
Also I work for a non-profit. Although my primary job is housing, [as] a landlord, the people I talk to every day, are seeking housing, many in homeless situations, others in shelters. Some living in their cars, with their children. Some are able to work and have income, a few have managed to procure vouchers for housing.
Like most PHA’s and local rental communities, we have a waitlist that runs several months to a year or longer for applicants not on our Priority list. I hear the panic, the frustration, the loss of faith in a better life. It is heartbreaking.
It is not a job for the weak. When I first started in this field at Ross County Community Action in 2019, just before Covid hit, I spent MANY moments in the bathroom crying. I have learned to steel myself somewhat over the last 6 years. But there are still stories that hurt to the core.
It’s one of those jobs you really have to love what you do. You have to have a real love for the people you are helping. You have to see them as worthy, and treat them with respect. And when the system threatens to make their lives more unbearable, you rise and fight back for them.
Most have lost faith, lost trust in those who should be there to protect them. They feel they have no voice, that speaking on their own behalf would put them in jeopardy of losing the little stability they might have. So I will be their voice. I will be their advocate. If local leaders aren’t open to helping, I will seek solutions from sources at higher levels that have been waging these battles for decades, and winning.
Having compassion, having a heart, being willing to extend a hand to help someone rise costs you nothing. There are no rewards for the work you do, and you will suffer a lot of criticism. But there is a certain peace within when you are caring for the “least of those” and you celebrate even the very small wins.
As many said last night, Chillicothe is not this kind of city. We are better than this harmful, inhumane ordinance. We have proven when the task is presented this City will rise to the occasion, it will employ every resource available, and get positive results.
Let’s focus on that momentum rather than rolling this city back to the dark ages when the poor, disenfranchised population were treated with malice.
Onward and forward.
Linda Hoover
So. Ohio HART
220-267-0588
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