The cost of care: Service providers under pressure and the push for change

The Red & Black by Katie Guenthner and Shweta Krishnan, June, 2026.

Christina Garcia, executive director of The Bigger Vision of Athens Community Shelter, has always been drawn to helping people. Less visible is the emotional and mental toll her work can take, particularly in a community where food insecurity and homelessness continue to be significant issues.

“I’m a people person,” Garcia said. “That part is a double-sided thing. I get a lot of fulfillment from [it], but it can be also incredibly heartbreaking as well.”

The Bigger Vision of Athens Community Shelter is a 501(c)3 nonprofit homeless shelter that serves people in Athens and surrounding communities. They provide nightly shelter for up to 36 guests. They also help individuals achieve housing stability and other long-term needs.

It is one of many shelters in the Athens community, but one of the few that is open every day of the year, including holidays and weekends, thanks to two on-site employees.

All of their work relies on private donations from individuals or corporations. The shelter has never received government grants, according to Garcia. Still, cuts to federal funding have affected Bigger Vision in indirect ways, she said.

“We have seen that trickle down effect in how it has affected the amount of donations that we are receiving,” Garcia said. “Everyone is just overwhelmed because the need has grown so great for all of these services, and there’s not enough to go around.”

The pause in SNAP in November 2025 due to a federal government shutdown temporarily halted the food benefits program that 42 million people use annually. That, combined with general economic uncertainty, led to a greater demand for services at the same time that private donations have decreased, Garcia explained. This particularly affects Athens, which has a poverty rate of 23.5% — or more than one in five people — nearly double the rate in Georgia.

Read more at The Red & Black at the University of Georgia.