After a search for a home that has sent them from Woodruff Park to the Martin Luther King Jr. Historic Site, members of Occupy Atlanta say they've found a new place to stay: the homeless shelter at Peachtree and Pine streets.
The space is currently used by the Metro Atlanta Task Force for the Homeless, which owes the city more than $147,000 in unpaid water and sewer bills and has been threatened with eviction.
The fourth floor of the shelter was unused until recently, said Sara Amis, a spokeswoman for Occupy Atlanta. On Saturday night, several dozen occupiers stayed on that floor. Now, more could move in, she said.
The unused space hadn't been cleaned thoroughly in a long time. Occupy Atlanta would like to put murals on the walls to make it feel like a more inhabitable space.
"It's a little rough but we've been cleaning it and getting it ready," Amis said Sunday. "Our primary goal is to have somewhere for people to sleep."
Amis said the homeless task force was donating the space to Occupy Atlanta, but that the occupiers -- who first started camping in Woodruff Park on Oct. 7 before being evicted last week -- might make repairs at the Peachtree-Pine facility.
"We were meeting with a number of organizations in the city that wanted to provide us space, but they were going to come with strings attached," said Tim Franzen, an Occupy Atlanta spokesman."The Task Force is the right place for us right now."
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