Could shelter showdown spell end for Peachtree-Pine?

An unpaid water bill could give the city the leverage it needs to put the Task Force for the Homeless out of commission.

Anita Beaty is right about one thing: City officials would love to shut down her enormous shelter at the corner of Peachtree and Pine streets.

Yesterday morning, the city cut off the water service to the former warehouse building occupied by Beaty’s Task Force for the Homeless. By evening, however, a judge had ordered the water turned back on. But unless Beaty is able to pay off a $160,000 water bill, the shelter may soon be forced to close down for good.

“It’s very serious right now,” says former Atlanta Councilwoman Myrtle Davis, who serves on the Task Force’s board of directors. “This is part of a concerted effort by the city to shut us down.”

Arguably so, but that doesn’t change the apparent fact that the Task Force owes $160,000 in outstanding water bills. Fulton County Superior Court Judge T. Jackson Bedford ordered the shelter to come up with $6,000 by Friday and another $3,000 or so by next Wednesday, and to develop a reasonable plan for paying off the rest of the bill.

“If they miss either payment, the water goes back off,” says Debi Starnes, another former councilwoman who now serves as Mayor Franklin’s Homeless Czarina.

(Photo by Joeff Davis)