Atlanta told to restore water service to homeless shelter

Atlanta turned off water to one of the city’s largest homeless shelters Tuesday for nonpayment until a judge ordered service restored, at least temporarily.

The Task Force for the Homeless at Peachtree and Pine streets owed Atlanta more than $160,000 for service, some of the debt years old.

Fulton Judge T. Jackson Bedford gave the task force until 10 a.m. Friday to pay $6,000 on the bill. Another $2,294 is due by Dec. 10 or water service will be turned off again.

On that day the task force must also give Bedford a plan for paying off the remaining debt.

Debi Starnes, the mayor’s adviser on the homeless, said the judge indicated he “wants both sides to work in good faith in taking care of the men and he wants the task force to be realistic about keeping the building open.”

Anita Beaty, director of the task force, could not be reached after the judge’s decision late Tuesday. But earlier in the day she said the interruption of water service was just another tactic the city was taking to shut down the shelter, which housed 700 men Monday night.

Beaty views the city, and especially Starnes, as the enemy in efforts to take care of an estimated 6,800 homeless people in Fulton and DeKalb counties.

“They’ve been breathing down our necks since we got this building” in 1997, Beaty said.

Starnes said the water shutoff was not a vendetta.

“What’s going on here is they haven’t paid the water bill in months and months” Starnes said. “They’ve [city officials] been working with them [the task force] for months trying to establish a payment plan.”

For most of Tuesday, there was no water at the shelter. The restrooms were barricaded and the showers and water fountains were dry.

As the task force sought the temporary restraining order, the city and the United Way frantically looked for accommodations for the men who did not want to sleep in the cavernous shelter if there was no water.

Many were going to stay — no matter what.

“This is the place where I lay my head,” said Arthur Doublett, who said he had been living on the streets since losing his job with a railroad company two months ago.

Others said they had to have certain creature comforts.

“I can’t spend the night there without a bathroom,” said Jimmie Jackson, who was headed to the shelter at the Atlanta Union Mission. That shelter can take almost 1,300 men, women and children, including some put in emergency beds.

Beaty admitted the shelter owned the money but said some of it was years old.

Janet Ward, spokeswoman for the Atlanta Department of Watershed Management, said the debt was based on use recorded by two meters to the shelter.

One of the meters was turned off in September because of a past due debt of $145,000. The second meter was turned off Tuesday morning because there was an outstanding bill of $16,000, including $9,000 for 12 months of sewer service the city neglected to bill.