Shelter’s lack of results is its undoing

Stuart Asch is a recovering addict who recently lost his job rehabbing mobile homes and found himself homeless —- again. He turned to the massive shelter at Peachtree and Pine streets for a roof.

His 56-year-old face is battered. One lone, yellowed tooth juts up from his bottom gum. His right eyelid droops but covers the eye of a well-informed critic who sees the shelter as a mixed blessing. He’s seen it enable a bum lifestyle, and he’s seen it save people from the streets.

“For a lot of people, this is their home,” he said after leaving the shelter one morning last week to look for a job. “A lot of the social ills people have is learned behavior. I don’t want to say they are bad people. It is really that they are grossly uninformed people.”

Asch —- along with Anthony Odell, Craig Johnson and scores of other men leaving the shelter that morning —- are at ground zero of a philosophical battle between the Metro Atlanta Task Force for the Homeless and the city of Atlanta. Task force chairman Bob Cramer contends the men are on the verge of losing the one bed they can count on —- because city officials have gutted the task force of its public grants and private donations, putting the shelter at risk of closing.

“The city of Atlanta has done everything in its power to drive us out of there,” he said. “They want to get rid of the task force for the homeless, and that makes no rational sense. We serve the most vulnerable population of homeless for free.”

Odell, Johnson and Asch said they don’t fear the closing of “the Pine” because they know other shelters can assist them while they get back on their feet. But they say those shelters have strict rules —- not imposed by the task force —- and that would deter many denizens.

“There are people who have been in there for four, five, seven years,” Asch said. “You probably have 300 chronically homeless people with no place to go. They would sleep outside rather than go to another shelter because of the freedom that Peachtree-Pine affords them.”

The list of the chronically homeless contains the people society tries to ignore: hard-core addicts thrown out by their families, mentally ill men who have no one who wants to care for them, broken men —- often without trades or degrees —- beaten down from years of bad breaks and lacking the will to pick themselves back up, Asch said. He believes his skill at mechanics and rehabbing trailers will help him find work again.

Some people draw the ire of residents and business owners for standing on the street outside the shelter during daylight hours and hanging out in nearby parks. Asch said dealers peddle drugs and street bartenders roll up in cars to hawk shots of liquor. Some homeless men sell their food stamps to store merchants for as little as 40 cents on the dollar to get cash for liquor and cigarettes, Asch said.

Cramer said the shelter serves as a steppingstone for scores of men each month to move from the street to jobs, social programs, government assistance and permanent housing, but he acknowledged that about one-third of its residents live there on at least a semi-permanent basis.

“Does the city of Atlanta want them walking around Midtown all night?” Cramer said. “What are you going to do? Take them outside and shoot them?”

The task force has watched its budget dwindle to about $600,000 from $1.5 million because city officials quit supporting it for federal and state grants and lobbied private donors to withdraw support, Cramer said.

He said that forced the task force to put the shelter up for sale —- it is asking $10.5 million but so far hasn’t landed a buyer —- to repay the $900,000 balloon note that is now due, putting the building at risk of foreclosure. He said there have been two “serious” offers for the building, but he wouldn’t name an amount.

Debi Starnes, who has spearheaded homeless issues for Mayor Shirley Franklin, blamed the task force’s financial situation on its laissez-faire approach to helping the homeless. Too many men don’t move to permanent housing or deal with addiction, she said.

“The reason their funding dried up is because of the lack of results —- for years, years and years,” said Starnes, a former city councilwoman. “There is no excuse for why people should languish in the shelter for years.”

Johnson, who ended up in the shelter because he didn’t have a job, said Starnes has a point.

“It might be a good thing if it closes, from what I can see,” said the 42-year-old, who moved out of his house because of marital problems and now gets counseling. “A lot of guys don’t take advantage of the programs that can help them. Other shelters require you to get into a daily program, but they don’t require that here. You can always get a bed here, but that’s not going to get your problem solved —- what got you here in the first place.”

The city and the task force have collided over homeless issues for years. Mayor Shirley Franklin’s administration has tried a two-tier approach to try to alleviate the homeless problem downtown. Police cracked down on loitering and panhandling and the city partnered with the United Way and the Regional Commission on the Homeless to start the Gateway Center to help homeless men, women and children find a way to move out of shelters and off the street.

Task force executive director Anita Beaty contends it has been the task force’s vocal opposition to the police crackdown on panhandlers, “urban camping” and arrests for things such as urinating in public that has prompted the city attack. The task force also doesn’t require homeless men to register their information on an interagency computer system that tracks which services they have been provided because the men are often suspicious of it, Beaty said.

“We are the only organization that has stood in the way of their draconian policy shift,” she said.

Odell, feeding pigeons outside “the Pine,” called it a sanctuary for people who have no place else to go. He was jailed in Clayton County for seven months after a sheriff’s deputy arrested him for carrying a hammer —- calling it a burglary tool, he said. He lost his apartment, his clothes and his wife, who died in a hospice while he was in jail.

“In Clayton County, there aren’t too many shelters. I had to come to Fulton County to find a place to lay my head,” said the 43-year-old, wiping away a tear as he talked about his wife. “I thank God for this place.”

TIMELINE

1998: Some politicians and businessmen complain that homeless beggars and loiterers are undermining the revitalization of downtown. Anita Beaty, executive director for the Metro Atlanta Task Force for the Homeless, plans to open a shelter in the building at the intersection of Peachtree and Pine streets.

2007: The state Department of Community Affairs rejects a task force application for a $112,000 grant based on a letter from Mayor Shirley Franklin’s office. The task force says Franklin is stopping $340,000 in federal Housing and Urban Development funds.

December 2008: The task force said it took in at least $300,000 less in grants and private donations than its operating costs of more than $1.4 million.

March 2009: The task force puts the building up for sale, asking $10.5 million.

 Staff
Map locates the task force shelter in Atlanta. Inset map outlines area of detail in Atlanta.