99 Homeless Women and Children Sleeping In Our Lobby July 11, 2014

FULTON COUNTY CLOSES 150 EMERGENCY BEDS FOR HOMELESS WOMEN AND CHILDREN AND EVICTS 17 HOMELESS FAMILIES WITH DISABILITIES

We at the Task Force had 99 women and children in our lobby at Peachtree Pine last night, July 11, 2014. And Fulton County closed 300 beds of shelter space, at their own admission and without public notice, within the last two months. (Springdale shelter for women and children with 150 spaces, and Jefferson Place shelter for men with 150 spaces.) Fulton County then evicted 17 formerly and now newly-homeless families with disabilities from the County’s “Permanent Supportive Housing Program.” NOW, Fulton County, as of Thurday, will give the Salvation Army funding to HOLD all SA’s emergency beds (the only free beds they ever have) for THEM — meaning of course, for the women and children THEY (the County) displaced from THEIR shelter and housing programs which they then closed down. Keep in mind that these funds are not creating any NEW BEDS for the folks waiting already for beds, but are “covering” for the beds that Fulton County closed down.

Mind you, any emergency and or transitional and permanent spaces that are available daily HAVE to go to the women and children who are already waiting for them, sleeping wherever we can find space for them. NOW, those people who were on their way towards stability and permanent housing with FULTON COUNTY have been sent BACK into the emergency shelter “system,” which is shrinking as we speak. With the privatization of nearly all the formerly “public” housing, and with no new housing being developed that is affordable for families who should pay no more than 30% of their income — 30% to minimum wage down to 30% of a disability check or 30% of TANF, FOOD STAMPS, etc., the opportunities for homeless families are rare to non-existent without permanent subsidies.

What is a mother to do if she and her six children, two of whom are under two years, are homeless and there is no available shelter space? She will sleep at the Task Force on mats until we are able to find bed space for her and her children at another facility. And then when she is eventually “fortunate” enough to get a placement, what then when she has used up her 30-or-fewer days there, and she still doesn’t have sufficient income to afford market rent, and no permanently subsidized housing is available? What is a mother to do? What she will do is return to the Task Force at Peachtree-Pine, if she hasn’t taken refuge with someone who has housing, and she will NOT qualify for any of the facilities she has “circulated” through because there are so many others needing those spaces who have NEVER used them before. Now, is she on her way to being called “chronically homeless”? Or worse yet, non-compliant, or even worse, put on a do-not-serve list? What is a mother to do?

— Anita Beaty, Metro Atlanta Task Force for the Homeless, July 12, 2014

“Is this a great country or what?” my favorite movie quote, from Night Shift.