Ex-homeless man hopes to raise $1 million in Atlanta

The 2006 Philanthropist of the Year from Fort Worth, Texas, was in Atlanta Tuesday. He came to town with his best friend, a well-heeled international art dealer.

Denver Moore knew well the grand hotel where 800 of Fort Worth’s wealthier residents turned out to honor him two years ago. He’d slept on the grate out back on plenty of cold nights.

“You never know whose eyes God is going to be watching you out of,” Moore, a homeless man turned homeless-shelter volunteer, told a similarly packed ballroom in Atlanta. The former sharecropper, prisoner and resident of the streets was the keynote speaker at “Courage to Care,” a luncheon benefiting about 30 area agencies that serve metro Atlanta’s homeless population.

Moore and art dealer Ron Hall met a decade ago when Hall and his wife started volunteering at a shelter in Fort Worth. The two men co-authored a book, “Same Kind of Different as Me,” that tells their story.

Trinity Community Ministries board member David Smith invited Moore and Hall to Atlanta after reading their book. Smith said he’d originally hoped a few hundred folks might come together and raise perhaps $200,000.

“God had a much bigger plan than me,” Smith told the crowd of 2,600 at the Georgia World Congress Center. Organizers hope “Courage to Care” will raise $1 million.

Trinity Community Ministries hosted the luncheon along with Atlanta Day Shelter for Women and Children, Samaritan House, Midtown Assistance Center, Love Thy Neighbor, Jerusalem House, Crossroads Community Ministries, Georgia Law Center for the Homeless, Atlanta Union Mission, St. Joseph’s Mercy Care, Atlanta Enterprise Center, First Step Staffing and Families First.

A number of other agencies that serve homeless clients participated by hosting tables and working the volunteer fair that followed the luncheon, where guests ate simple meals of sandwiches, apples and cookies from plastic boxes.

Hall and Moore say Tuesday’s was the largest crowd they’ve addressed.

HOMELESSNESS IN METRO ATLANTA

6,840 people are considered homeless, living in an emergency shelter or living in transitional housing in the city of Atlanta and DeKalb and Fulton counties.

40 percent of homeless men are veterans.

17,265 homeless children were enrolled in metro Atlanta schools during the 2005-06 school year.

75,000 people in Georgia have been or will be homeless sometime this year.

Source: United Way Regional Commission on Homelesness