Friday, November 11, 2011
Neighborhoods Downtown homeless told to move along by Sunday
Posted by Thomas Wheatley @thomaswheatley on Fri, Nov 11, 2011 at 4:50 PM
- Joeff Davis
- MOVE ALONG AGAIN David, who asked we not show his face, has slept along the ledges across the street from City Hall for six weeks
During the day, the men and women congregate along the ledges and planters. At night, long after the government workers and lawyers have gone home, the homeless folk rest on beds made from cardboard boxes and blankets until nearby churches start serving breakfast. If it's raining, some move under a tree on the grass outside City Hall, right under the office window of Mayor Kasim Reed. Others simply get drenched. Roaches the size of your little finger scurry along the wall. The concentration of homeless is so dense they've even earned a nickname from nearby outreach centers: "the ledge people."
"This is not how human beings are supposed to live," says Matthew Thomas, a 48-year-old Columbus native who's been sleeping on the ledge for two weeks.
Why they've recently converged on the perimeter of the state-owned Georgia Plaza Park isn't clear. Some have attributed the uptick to the Metro Atlanta Task Force for the Homeless' possible eviction from the Peachtree-Pine shelter. Other sources have hinted that the urban campers had occupied Woodruff Park before and during Occupy Atlanta's stay in the downtown greenspace. Everyone interviewed by CL noted that the site is conveniently located near a concentration of homeless service providers and relatively safer than sleeping under a bridge.
Apparently, however, the ledge-dwelling ends this weekend.
According to well-placed sources and the campers themselves, law enforcement officials have warned the group that portable barricades could be erected as early as Sunday along the ledges to deter people from sleeping there. Those who refuse to move along before Monday could face arrest.
Most public officials we spoke to would not comment and the Georgia Building Authority, which oversees the park property, didn't even return calls. But, according to background sources, the initiative to shut down the encampment began with several Fulton judges who last week met with the Fulton Sheriff's office, Atlanta Police and state officials to discuss how the situation should be handled.
“The judges are concerned about the safety and security of jurors because that’s the drop-off point [for jury duty],“ confirms Fulton Sheriff Ted Jackson, who adds out that his office does not have jurisdiction on state property.
In recent days, the number of people sleeping outside the park has dropped to about 15. Folks seem to have either moved into traditional shelters or simply found another place to sleep. According to Chuck Bowen, the executive director of the Central Presbyterian's Outreach and Advocacy Center, says the United Way's Street-to-Home team visited Central Avenue early Thursday morning to offer assistance placing some of the homeless people in transitional housing.
Regardless, those interviewed by CL were dismayed that law enforcement officials were simply ordering people to leave rather than working with resource providers to connect the homeless with supportive housing — which nearly all said they'd accept if offered.
"All you're doing is pushing people from one end of town to another," said David, who slept on the ledge for six weeks. "You're not helping anybody."
Bowen agrees: "The simple fact of the matter is there is not enough shelter space in the city right now to accommodate everyone who needs to be off the streets. Until the city leadership and the business community come together and realize there are not enough [overnight emergency and transitional housing] beds available we're never going to solve the problem. Instead what's happening is they're shuffling the homeless from one area to the other."
Comments (17)
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If Milton County is formed, will it take 1/2 of the homeless along with taking parks, infrastructure, and the like?
Wonder how many "Christians" in Atlanta are too busy to give a shit about the homeless? Most, I guess. Makes me want to go atheist. The homeless are not going to disappear unless we help them or kill them.
They should all move to Buckhead. I think the corner of Piedmont and Peachtree is perfect. If the elected officials don't give a damn then maybe the good people of Buckhead will shower them with all their conservative Christian charity.
At the minimum, it will def raise awareness. I mean who is going to see the multitudes of homeless in downtown Atlanta? Place is like a ghost town.
actually: they could occupy the park where roswell and peachtree converge. All it would take would be the temporary relocation of the mobile homeless outreach services.
Had one-day jury duty back in October, rode the bus and noticed less than a dozen people who are homeless on the ledge. No one approached the jurors while I was there. Sad that judges do not know that the vast, vast majority of people who are homeless are not criminals and are not a threat to anybody. Scary that a professional at Central Outreach, one of the best run shelters in the city for over a quarter century, is saying that there isn't room in shelters or transitional housing for this group of people. How much of a warchest does the business community have to really, really help the 400-500+ people living at Peachtree-Pine? Glad the Street-to-Home team finally got involved. Pres. Bush's 10-year plan to end homelessness called for an end to the "move on" policies. Can someone please educate the judges and Sheriff Jackson that the "move on" approach is a morally bankrup expediency that absolutely must stop.
The money the mayor wasted on screwing with the first amendment rights could have gone far in providing improvements to the homeless shelter at Peachtree-Pine that they want to evict. In the winter. Adding countless more homeless to find shelter on the streets and under the freeway overpasses. It really must be embarrassing for city hall to see the homeless from their windows of old city hall, reminding them with each glance how hard hearted they are, and how incapable they are to actually DO something positive rather than resort to simply moving the problem out of sight. Too many of our elected officials who are occupying city hall, along with too many citizens and downtown power players, have no vision beyond knowing how to bully and make life harder for the people who live in this city, those with homes and those without. Some of the comments on this site sadly reveal the reality of the heartlessness and coldness that possesses so many who must really be miserable living day in, day out trapped and unable to get away from their hatred of their fellow sentient brothers and sisters. Are they doomed to forever sit lazily at their keyboard pecking out the best they got, i.e., providing us with the answer "to euthanize"? I hope not.
You all have in fact come up with a solution. The homeless only get (negative) attention when they are seen. Hence, "move along" ( to where you're not seen). The churches don't mind feeding them there, instead of their own neighborhoods, so they can drive to "that terrible place" to earn their Heaven Badges and then drive away to "home." No? Then why don't they load them up in the van and shelter them in their homes and churches to begin with? Is their Faith not big enough for that? Hmm?
The homeless need to organize, like Occupy cause, making themselves visible, tangible, and seen. This could be an important splinter group of Occupy -- one that focuses on the plight of the homeless, specifically. They should gather in wealthy suburbs, demand shelter from their Christian Churches and public institutions, sleep on their lawns. Demand Christian charity on the steps of the Christians homes. Force them to acknowledge their own hypocrisy.
The services should follow the homeless on their own, but if not then shame them via the media. Too much to ask from the Homeless? Really, what have they got to lose? They'd be safer, better fed, and medically attended to in jail, if it came to that.
So - what would Mayor Reed do if everybody there stayed awake? Kick THEM out? Of course - he is PAID to raise a stink - he operates a company PAID by Federal funds to keep fighting like this "for the safety of Atlanta." Kasim Reed is simply pissing away as MUCH taspayer dollars as he possibly can - because guess which company gets the funds for supplies and training and other crap? HIS, probably!
http://www.atlantauasi.com/
Atlanta Urban Area Security Initiative = FEAR mongering!
The judges are WHAT?? Afraid. And, Kasim Reed needs MO' MONAYYY! Welcome to the pissing away of your tax dollars!
I'm just wondering why they don't go to peachtree and pine? If there is enough room for occupy ATL to stay there then why not them? I'm not trying to troll or anything it just doesn't make sense to me.
Homeless people, with any sense, fear P'tree and Pine. I've heard them beg and do anything not to be discharged there from the hospital. There's apparently open drug use (which is not good if your trying to recover), it's unsanitary, physically unsafe, and, oh yeah, like a rotting cherry on this broken pile of humanity -- a super strain of TB is in the air. Driver, Take me to P'tree and Pine!
Atlanta is the dumping ground for homeless throughout the southeast. If you wind up homeless in Mississippi, Alabama or other parts of Georgia you be put on a bus and sent to downtown Atlanta. Why should downtown bare the brunt, put them on buses and send them to New York or how about Buckhead! Ha!
Giving money to Peachtree-Pine is the same as flushing it down the toilet. Self proclaimed activists for the homeless must really hate the homeless to want to send them there... or totally ignorant of what Peachtree-Pine truly is. Don't worry though, soon Anita will be out and forced to get a real job while the men who are trapped there are offered real help. Make no mistake, any friend of Peachtee-Pine is no friend of the homeless.
Atlien99, you mean there isn't a tree downtown that grows homeless or a secret homeless factory in the basement of city hall? From the way more people talk it's like downtown Atlanta is 100% responsible for all the homeless of the region. I notice for all their complaining that none of the so called defenders of the homeless offer up their front yards for them to sleep on. It's so easy to condemn from a distance and pretend to have clean hands.
I've seen dumping of homeless happen many times. Usually it's the churches from rural areas that give the needy in their community a free ride to Atlanta with the thinking being that Atlanta can help those who can't get help in the little town they're from. But I have to wonder why these church vans always drop them off a few blocks away from the shelter instead of driving them to the door. Could it be that Pastor Bob knows what he is doing is in some way wrong? At least churches usually only drop off two or three people at a time. The Civic Center MARTA station for years has been a favorite dumping point for entire bus loads from other jurisdictions. Bet Megabus didn't know about that when they picked Civic Center as their Atlanta hub.
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