Millions owed by Atlanta homeless shelter

The Metro Atlanta Task Force for the Homeless is in financial trouble: There are many debtors, yet there is little money coming in.

A payment is due Monday on the $160,000 the Task Force for the Homeless owes Atlanta for an overdue water and sewer debt. Executive Director Anita Beatty promises the task force will make an $8,000 payment.

The Task Force also is behind in its $6,000-a-month interest payments to two of the three lenders that loaned the charity a total of more than $4.4 million. Beatty says they are working on a payment plan.

There also is a $66,453 federal tax lien against the task force for not paying payroll taxes in 2001, 2006 and 2007. Again, Beatty says the organization hopes to have that resolved soon.

All total, the shelter owes more than $4.65 million beyond what it costs to operate. Last year, it brought in a little more than $1.1 million, half from contributions and half through grants, but its expenses topped $1.4 million.

“We aren’t current on anything right now,” Beatty said.

The financial state of the Task Force for the Homeless, one of Atlanta’s most visible and most controversial advocacy organizations, reached a critical point earlier this month when the city turned off the water to its cavernous Midtown shelter where as many as 700 men sleep each night.

More than $160,000 was owed and only sporadic payments had been paid on the debt until earlier this month, when the city turned off all water to the shelter.

A Fulton County judge ordered within hours that the water be turned back on, but he also told the task force to pay $14,000 within a week or risk having it shut off again with the court’s approval. (The task force did so; Monday, it hopes to add the $8,000.)

Beatty says it’s all a conspiracy by the city, business community and other agencies that help the homeless to shut her down.

“The issue is not about our finances. It’s about the political reality and the attacks on us and the homeless people,” Beatty said.

Those she accuses of being a part of the conspiracy say that’s not true.

“It’s not a conspiracy. It’s the same rules for everybody,” said Bill Bolling, founder of the Atlanta Community Food Bank.

Bolling has been working with the homeless and feeding the poor in Atlanta more than three decades, and he was chairman or a member of the Task Force’s board in the early years.

“It’s not enough to get a big space,” Bolling said. “You have to pay for the lights and pay for the water and pay for the food.”

Debi Starnes, homelessness policy adviser to Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin, said: “For the sake of the homeless men in that building, I hope that some day the [task force] management will accept blame for their own poor management and stop blaming everybody else [for the organization’s].”

Beatty said the city increased its pressure on her and her organization in 2007, when the task force was essentially cut off from some its primary funding sources — almost $1 million that passed through by the city, which was augmented by donations that usually totaled another $1 million or more.

The Gertrude & William C. Wardlaw Fund has been Beatty’s No. 1 benefactor, even more than the government funds. The foundation bought the United Motors Services building in 1997 for $1.3 million from St. Luke’s Episcopal Church and turned the property over to the task force for $1. The Wardlaw Fund then loaned or donated to the task force millions more over the years, according to tax and property records.

The outstanding $4 million debt to the Wardlaw Fund does not include the cost of the property. Attempts to reach a spokesperson for the fund were not successful. The Wardlaw Fund also is the only source for Our Fine Arts These, Inc., another non-profit run by Beatty and her husband Jim, according to tax returns. The records for the task force do not list the salaries for Beatty or her husband, who also is listed as executive director on public records. Tax returns for Our Fine Arts show the Beattys have been paid almost $100,000 a year. Anita Beatty said Wardlaw was contributing to their “retirement fund.”

Beatty believes the city is responding to pressure from area businesses that want get rid of the hundreds of men who loiter outside the shelter day and night.

Board Chairman and businessman Bob Cramer shares Beatty’s suspicions.

“A lot of this results from the relentless pursuit by the city to cut off our funding,” he said. “But we’ve hung on for 20 years; we believe we will hang for another 20 years. I don’t care what they do to us, we will find a way [to get funds to operate].”