DeKalb’s 30032 zip code motivates worried neighbors

People don’t often rally around their zip code.

But DeKalb County Commissioner Larry Johnson galvanized some residents in his district when he pointed out that zip code 30032 had the county’s highest number of child welfare complaints.

Several dozen people responded by turning out Saturday for what at first resembled many other community meetings. Sipping coffee and orange juice in the fellowship hall of Hillside Presbyterian Church on Columbia Drive, they listened to presentations and looked at maps.

The 30032 zip is a swath bordered on the south by I-20 and on the east by I-285. Its west side curves roughly along the Atlanta city limit and then northeast on Memorial Drive to I-285.

The area has the most home foreclosures in the county, pockets of 17 percent unemployment and, as commissioner Johnson likes to point out, an ample supply of businesses with alcoholic beverage licenses. Not far from site of Saturday’s meeting is the apartment complex where two DeKalb police officers were shot to death in January.

The meeting’s participants, sitting in the church’s folding chairs, learned that most of the child welfare complaints were for “lack of supervision.”

“Parents were working, they couldn’t afford child care, there were no after-school programs,” said Walker Solomon, county director of the Division of Family and Children Services.

Much of the discussion centered on what can be done to offer free supervision of children before and after school. Many of the participants were members of churches, but they gave their biggest round of applause to a pointed call for churches to do more.

“We’ve got too many mega-churches and little churches sitting on the corner just opening on Sunday … they could put a big hole in the problem,” said April Tigner, youth director of Christian Jubilee church on Glenwood Road.

After that, the meeting picked up steam. Would task forces be appointed? No, said Camille Gardner. Call them “work groups, because we’re not playing.”

And, she said, come up with a slogan, something to go on a bumper sticker that will tell residents something positive is going on in 30032. She found herself chairing the “communication” group to tackle that and other tasks.

Other groups will focus on schools, faith-based organizations, and government. The meeting ended with people buzzing around the newly appointed chairs, making plans.