diff --git a/scripts/geodata/openaddresses/formatter.py b/scripts/geodata/openaddresses/formatter.py
index dd47801c..979ccf4a 100644
--- a/scripts/geodata/openaddresses/formatter.py
+++ b/scripts/geodata/openaddresses/formatter.py
@@ -484,6 +484,7 @@ class OpenAddressesFormatter(object):
                             break
 
             for subdir, subdir_config in six.iteritems(config.get('subdirs', {})):
+                subdir = safe_encode(subdir)
                 for file_config in subdir_config.get('files', []):
                     filename = file_config['filename']