The Shelter That Wouldn't Die

I probably should have expected to see Occupy Atlanta occupy the Peachtree-Pine homeless shelter, officially known as the Metro Atlanta Task Force For The Homeless. Still, I didn't think their support for the Task Force would prove so intimate.

I was happy to see the occupiers in Woodruff Park for as long as they were. Having an activist presence that is not in any was corporately funded or promoted is highly refreshing, and helps to remind Atlantans and visitors that we are a real city, with real inhabitants, who have real beliefs. This urban moonscape, as it was constructed, can sometimes belie the reality of human existence here, let alone the real suffering of those who have fallen afoul of monolithic capitalism, and a simple assertion of civil defiance brings a necessary realist jolt to the local, national and global discourse.

Let me make it known, however, that I am no admirer of this particular homeless shelter. It was bad enough that, when I lived a third of a mile away in 2008, I would witness petty thieves scouring paid parking lots near the shelter, not even trying to hide their actions. Crack baggies formed a speckled layer over the nearby sidewalks of Peachtree Street. Sometimes the homeless would wait at the door of my building to beg people entering and leaving. But it got still worse than that. The complete free reign given the shelter's inhabitants, to continue using drugs (which requires money, which for them necessitates theft) and to stay there indefinitely, has killed most nearby business on Peachtree since I moved out of the neighborhood three years ago. Django, Mick's, and their neighbors are all gone, except for one barbershop and Gladys Knight's Chicken and Waffles, where the wait to enter on the weekends is still more than an hour long (and the food is still fantastically indulgent). Bear in mind, also, that Emory Crawford-Long (whoops, Emory University Hospital Midtown) is directly across the street from this row of now-empty storefronts.

I am furious at megabanks and other corporate scavengers for the damage they have wrought on American lives, and Occupy has rightfully directed anger at them for this. The business casualties of Peachtree-Pine, however, were no such malefactors; indeed, they gave ordinary people a reason to be in this part of town (what is it called? South Midtown? SoNo?). Beyond that, any institution that warehouses drug-addicted homeless men without any definite time limit, does not force them to get help for their addictions, and refuses to pay its water bill for several years until Friday, or so they say, is no good citizen.

I have a question for Mayor Reed, to which I honestly couldn't guess the answer: Why are you being so conciliatory all of a sudden towards the Task Force?