Atlanta Mayor Dickens decries barriers around support for the homeless

Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens wants to do more to support the city’s homeless community as he continues to gauge the quality of city services.

Dickens said at a Tuesday morning press roundtable that he is meeting with shelter providers to discuss ways to improve services for the homeless population. He said not having an ID, for instance, shouldn’t prevent people from getting shelter.

The mayor also said the city is capable of obtaining rapid coronavirus tests for people trying to access the shelters.

“Requiring a PCR [test] from someone who is experiencing homelessness at eight o’clock at night may not necessarily be in the best interest of what we’re trying to achieve as a community,” Dickens said.

During his first 15 days in office, Dickens visited one of Atlanta’s warming centers at the Old Adamsville Recreation Center to assess the needs of the center and its patrons. The city has opened two warming centers over the last two weeks.

The city invites people to the Gateway Center at 8 p.m. for transportation to the centers, which stay open until 10 a.m.

Two employees for the Southern Center for Human Rights took to Twitter on Tuesday afternoon to criticize the city — specifically the Salvation Army — because the organization’s warming centers require people to leave at 5 a.m.

They also said the organization’s centers require negative COVID tests.

A Salvation Army Metro Atlanta Area spokesperson told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that the organization’s center, which opens on nights when the temperature dips below 40 degrees, does not require negative COVID tests for entry. Their Intake begins at 9 p.m. and ends at 5:30 a.m.

Rashad Taylor and City Councilmember Liliana Bakhtiari said the city is working to provide tests at city-owned sites, and they said city centers don’t put people out at 5 a.m. Taylor, who was a senior advisor to former Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, said the city is working on providing tests to Salvation Army.

Dickens said the city can open a third warming center if necessary. He expressed a desire to buy hotel and motel rooms to keep people from the cold for up to two months. Additionally, Dickens said he wants to dedicate more property to help unsheltered people.

Dickens said he’s eager to meet with shelter providers “to see just what barriers we can reduce at the shelters so that they’ll take folks and not say no to somebody that we all really need to say yes to.”

The United Way of Greater Atlanta and former Mayor Bottoms raised $50 million to provide 550 homes for the homeless in 2019. Atlanta has created 800 permanent housing apartments with $18 million in federal funding to put nearly 700 people into housing with wrap-around services.

But the city was still criticized last summer by the ATL Homeless Union, a new organization that protested downtown for better medical care, long-term housing, and access to water for the homeless.

The ATL Homeless union did not immediately respond to an email for comment on Wednesday.