Addressing City Issues at Savannah's Town Hall Meeting

SAVANNAH, Ga. -- Homelessness, prisoners re-entering the community, and helping Savannah's youth make the right choices: all of were topics of discussion at Wwednesday night's City of Savannah town hall meeting.

Once every quarter, the city invites anyone with concerns to speak their minds.

An estimated three million people in the U.S. are homeless. More than 19,000 of those are believed to be in Georgia. Now the city is proposing to step up efforts to address the estimated 5,500 homeless in Chatham County.

City Manager Michael Brown talked about the need to address the thousands of homeless in Savannah, some of whom live in camps under the city's bridges.

"I think our community attitude should be to fully understand the issue of homelessness. It's not just a national problem. It's an international problem," said Brown. Brown included a list of how the community can better help the city's homeless population.

Council members also heard a presentation about a program called Out 4 Life, that seeks to prepare cities to help prisoners transition into communities.

"We have an American crisis on our hands... From the cradle to the prison: that system is very real. It is reality and public safety is at hand here," said Jean Bush from Prison Fellowship, the group behind Out 4 Life. The Out 4 Life state conference for Georgia will be held November 8-11 in Savannah.

Savannah neighbors also spoke their minds about several issues, including the city's youth.

"Kids today unlike yesteryear, rich or poor, have no respect for others. We have let what is good be called bad, and what is bad be called good. When males wear their pants below their buttocks and hold their crotch in public, this would be called indecent exposure... Let's stop our youth from acting like prisoners and start acting like respectable young men as they should be," said one man.

Officials taking note of the public's concerns to make their city better.

"We need our churches and our schools and our community to step forward and to start being a friend to these young men."

Other topics at the meeting included the city's efforts to address drainage problems in various neighborhoods and efforts to combat property crime like burglaries.