GREENVILLE, N.C. (WNCT) – Two council meetings took place around Greenville City Hall Thursday night.
One was held virtually with members of the City Council. The other is made up of members of human rights groups, held outside the building. It’s called the People’s Council. Members claim Greenville’s elected leaders aren’t doing enough to meet the community’s needs.
“Greenville has a history of not listening to the people of Greenville,” said Aviel Washington, who attended the council meeting. “This is just like the culmination of not listening, I guess.”
One of the group’s goals is for Greenville to have more affordable housing.
“People are living under bridges,” said Don Cavellini, an activist. “They are not staying in the homeless shelters. The shelter is crowded anyway because they have to keep social distancing.”
The group created a proposal, suggesting city-owned vacant houses be used as places for homeless people to fix up and stay.
“The people who are homeless can repair those buildings and then eventually when they’ve done the work, they can live there,” said Cavellini. “We’re not asking the city to build any housing.”
A spokesperson for Greenville government says they’re working to utilize some of these vacant structures for new development of affordable housing. He said an example of this is a collection of houses renovated in the Lincoln Park neighborhood this year.
