The housing authority board voted against extending the Salvation Army's development agreement for the tract at 2305 Augusta Avenue in west Savannah, then moved to reacquire land the charity had controlled since a 2021 special-use permit. The reversal stops the Center of Hope, a roughly 200-person transitional shelter that had been tied up in a lawsuit from the Weeping Time Coalition.
The coalition argued the ground sits next to the former Ten Broeck Race Course, where more than 400 enslaved people were sold in 1859 in one of the largest slave auctions in the country. Taking the parcel back returns it to public hands and lets the city and a new state heritage authority decide how land beside that history gets used.
Why it matters
It ends a years-long fight over building a homeless shelter next to sacred ground and keeps the site under public control for heritage planning.
Sources and documents4 sources
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