This wasn't the first time the Metro Atlanta Task Force for the Homeless faced eviction from the sprawling former auto parts warehouse on Peachtree and Pine streets near downtown.
Once again, eviction blinked.
In a surprising reversal late Friday afternoon, Fulton County Superior Court Judge Craig Schwall vacated his initial dispossession order due to a pending, and seemingly forgotten, motion to recuse. Once that motion is addressed, Schwall may be able to reinstate his eviction order, according to the court's staff attorney.
The about-face buys the task force a little more time, but not much. The shelter has until the end of the month to pay more than $200,000 in overdue water bills to the city. Last month, a federal judge ruled that the city has sovereign immunity protecting it from any legal action by the task force, paving the way for the Oct. 31 deadline.
Regardless, the task force's director, Anita Beaty, said the shelter's inhabitants aren't going anywhere.
"We will occupy this facility if we have to," she said.
The task force's attorney, Steven Hill, said keeping the shelter at the Peachtree and Pine facility won't be easy.
"But I continue to have faith in people and the system that they're not going to throw some 500 to 1,000 people on the street," he said.
Schwall's eviction order was to have taken effect Oct. 27 . In his initial ruling, Schwall blasted Beaty's stewardship of the property, which he said is in "deplorable physical condition and cannot offer adequate benefit to the less fortunate members of society, the very persons whom the property is mandated to serve."
"The court is not assured that plaintiffs have the best interests of these community members in mind," Schwall wrote. "Indeed, giving plaintiff's allegations and conduct, one could determine the plaintiffs are less concerned about the plight of their community and more concerned with embarrassing [the] defendants and tarnishing reputations."
Beaty, who noted that Schwall never visited the Peachtree-Pine facility, had been busy preparing for Thursday's would-be showdown, enlisting the assistance of Occupy Atlanta, the protest movement headquartered in Woodruff Park.
"We're not going to be alone and we're not going to be evicted," she said Friday before learning of Schwall's reversal.
Beaty has been affiliated with the shelter since 1984, taking control of the fledgling task force started three years earlier by then-Mayor Andrew Young after a bitter freeze left 17 homeless men dead from exposure. Created to connect the homeless with local emergency providers, the task force, under Beaty's leadership, emerged as the central administrator of federal grant money.
Beaty eventually cut ties with the city found a new benefactor in Coca-Cola heiress Ednabelle Wardlaw, who purchased the Peachtree-Pine building and donated it to the task force, where it has operated independently -- and at odds with city officials -- ever since.
That conflict has intensified in recent years, with the city turning off the shelter's water for unpaid bills and the task force ducking previous foreclosures.
Beaty alleges the city has severely limited the task force's ability to pay those bills by discouraging potential donors. In a deposition taken in August 2009, Central Atlanta Progress president A.J. Robinson acknowledged meeting with Chick-fil-A chief operating officer Dan Cathy after he had pledged $750,000 to the task force.
Robinson testified the purpose of the meeting was to let Cathy hear about the impact the shelter has had on the neighborhood and "to educate him about other opportunities in the community to support homeless activities."
Cathy eventually withdrew his donation.
"That sort of thing is still going on," Beaty said.
The shelter's federal lawsuit against Central Atlanta Progress and the Atlanta Downtown Improvement District has not yet been adjudicated, Hall said.
Hall on Friday filed an appeal of Schwall's initial ruling. He said he is uncertain when, and if, the judge can reinstate his order to evict.
About the Author
