TASK FORCE WINS TODAY’S HEARING TO COMPEL!

The weather was cloudy and bleak. Zeus had spoken earlier with flashing lightning and rolling thunder. He’s not happy. However poor little David walked away from court smiling with five smooth stones still at his side. The sun was shining everywhere. In the Superior Court of Fulton County, at 10:30 AM, Judge Ural Glanville denied a motion filed by Atlanta attornys to dismiss the case, The Alanta Task Force for the Homeless v. The City of Atlanta (Mayor’s office). A motion had been filed for this hearing to COMPEL Central Atlanta Progress to produce Documents and to produce A.J. Robinson, President and Richard Orr, Senior Projects Manager, for deposition.

The Judge having said that he found the information in the argument on the motion to COMPEL “relevant” ordered the attorneys, Steve Hall for the Task Force and Steve Riddell for CAP to meet. This meetiing lasted about fifteen minutes. Riddell did not want the Judge to give the order. This means that CAP lawyers will produce all previously subpoenaed documents and all previously subpoenaed persons to be deposed. Those persons so far who have been subpoenaed are Robinson and Orr.

Entrapment Or Routine Police Procedure?

On September 9, 2009 at 9:15 a.m. a female Atlanta Police officer parked her police cruiser in a marked parking place on Pine Street two parking places down from Peachtree Street. Upon stepping from the car she placed a $20 dollar bill under the driver-side wiidshield wiper. She walked across Peachtree Street to the Zone 5 police precinct. She entered the building and stood watching the car she had just parked. A Task Force staff person witnessed and wrote down what he saw. A second staff person photographed the car in the parking place. The car was moved from the parking place just before noon. I do not know when or by whom the $20 bill was removed.

The parking place that held the cruiser with the money is adjacent to the Peachtree-Pine Center operated by the Atlanta Task Force for the Homeless. The facility is an emergency shelter for some 575-650 homeless men, primarily Atlantans and predominently African-Americans. At 9:15 a.m. some 300 homeless men would be in or about the facility. Could the action of this officer possibly be entrapment? With Atlanta’s crime scene abundant with car jackings and drive-by shootings and endless drug dealings at Pine Street and Courtland 220 feet from the parked cruiser, is this the best use of Atlanta’s police power putting cash under windshield-wiper blades? I remember and bless The Reverend Joseph Lowery whom I heard say several times, “And the beat goes on.”

James Wilson Beaty, PhD
Jeremiah 22.16

Has Atlanta’s Leadership Gone Bat-Shit Mad?

Today, September 10, 2009, The Grady Coalition held a press conference on the steps of Fulton County’s Grady Hospital. Dr. Neil Shulman, other physicians, nurses and three kidney patients spoke passionately to 100 people. The press conference was called in order to beg the new privatized Board of Directors of the hospital to continue dialysis treatment for 90 patients. The Board announced several months ago its decision to close the Dialysis Clinic. No other hospital in Atlanta offers this treatment to indegent patients.

Anyone over 12 and awake in Atlanta knows that our City has not been “poor friendly” for the last dozen years. In fact, Atlanta’s leadership has labored to exterminate the homeless population since the Campbell Administration. The Atlanta Housing Authority headed by Renee Glover is yet another exterminator of housing for the under belly of Atlanta’s populace. AHA like housing authorities across America is no longer an organization that welcomes the poorest of the poor. And the “low lifes” that Glover’s regime has put on the streets are not considered worthy of the upgraded housing of the Atlanta Housing Authority. Thirteen housing communities under the umbrella of AHA have been leveled within the last 36 months.

But Grady Hospital! The last bastion of medical care for the poor! The latest victims of the War Against the Poor are not homeless people. It is understandable that Atlanta, the city too busy to hate, would do away with homeless people and the lower than low income renters. Those folks are unsightly. They are not pretty. There’s no place for them in Horace Sibley’s Tourists’ Triangle or Central Atlanta’s Sanitized Zone. The homeless folks from Peachtree-Pine smell bad. Ratchet Rob Hunter has seen to that as he has lived up to his name, Ratchet Rob “I’ll turn your water off” Hunter.

But not Grady! Reason dictates that a hospital would be the last place the corporate vultures would invade. WRONG. It is beyond imagination what has happened. Over the protest of a few Fulton Count Board of Commissioners, Grady Hospital has become a privatized business, answering only to a corporate board. The most recent result of privatization is the Board’s decision to shut down the Dialysis Clinic, presently serving 90 patients. The clinic according to the board is not economically feasible. The fiscally responsible board has counted the cost, a short fall of $4,000,000. To hell with the 90 people whose lives depent on this treatment. Besides 60 of them are from other countries, anyway. To be sure most of them won’t live long, anyway.

Tell that to the five-year-old boy holding a sign that reads: “Keep the Dialysis Clinic Open.” The little fellow’s 34 year-old mother will die if she misses one treatment. This five-year old will feel first hand the claw of privatization, the hammer of fiscal responsibility. Along side this lad stood eight adult patients whose lives will be snuffed out without dialysis treatment. The clinic is scheduled to close September 20. That’s TEN days from this writing.

What can be done? Public outcry may make a difference. Enough clamor just might bring about an injunction from, say, Fulton County Superior Court to enjoin Grady Hospital to continue dialysis treatment for all who need it.

Perhaps in a better world every board member who voted to close the clinic would be charged with attempted murder. And if one living soul dies from lack of treatment, let that charge be changed to MURDER.

Can you imagine that five-year-old boy having to hold that sign in a civilized country that has universal health care: Canada, Great Britain, Scotland, the Scandanavian countries and others.

I dedicate this “bat-shit mad” piece to the honorable U. S. Congressman Joseph “mind your manners now” Wilson of South Carolina. He’s the man who shouted, “You lie” during President Obama’s address to the nation on health care. Imagine if you dare an elected American official outraged that human beings, not to his liking, might receive health care insurance that would pay medical expenses. What have we become? Where will we stand at the day of reckoning? When will leadership ever take us back home again?

Is Atlanta the home of Dr. King? Who could ever tell it? Jeremiah 6.14 “They dress the wound of my people as though it were not serious.” Should you read this blog I beg you to tell two people of the proposed Grady Massacre. Please shout from the housetops the outrage, one more atrocity committed by the city we love, the city we have lost. Tell you church. Tell your mosque. Tell your synagogue. Tell a judge. Pray for the 90 victims and their grieving families. Call the White House. Bombard the Outhouse. Ask every mayoral candidate what he or she would do to save the Dialysis Clinic.

James Wilson Beaty, PhD
Jeremiah 22.16

Shakespeare On Social Injustices

Outside the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament, I know of no statement exposing social injustices more powerful than Shakespeare’s Sonnet 66. He gave the world 154 sonnets, give or take a few, that some scholars believe might have been written by somebody else. Like the 150 Psalms of David, a few may have been set down by a second writer. I don’t care. For our purposes authorship is secondary; content is primary.

Sonnet 66 is unique for several reasons. First, ten of its lines begin with the coordinate conjunction, “And.” Ten lines beginning with the same word displays a regularity not to be found elsewhere in the remaining sonnets. I have not seen this regularity anywhere else in good writing. Shakespeare has a reason for his unvarying rhythm. He is creating a regularity that matches the monotony of the world’s injustice. And that monotony has its own dismal pattern of relentless repetition. A second unique feature of Sonnet 66 is its abandoning the three quatrains and rhyming couplet. Each of the “stanzas” forms a mini-poem while the couplet serves as a commentary on the fourteen lines. Not Sonnet 66.

For our accessibility and enjoyment I want to put the 14-line poem in front of us:

Sonnet 66
Tired with all these, for restful death I cry:
As to behold desert a beggar born,
And needy nothing trimmed in jollity,
And purist faith unhappily forsworn,
And guilded honor shamefully misplaced,
And maiden virtue rudely strumpeted,
And right perfection wrongfully disgraced,
And strength by limping sway disabled,
And art made tongue-tied by authority,
And folly (doctor-like) controlling skill,
And simple truth miscalled simplicity,
And captain good attending captain ill.
Tired with all these, from these would I be gone,
Save that to die I leave my love alone.

Line 1 tells that the poet cries for death because he is exhausted by the injustices he’s about to list. Lines 13 and 14 which close the sonnet repeat that his devastated state remains, and his desire to be gone from “these” remains. However, his only grip on constancy is his faithfully loving those around him. He cannot leave them alone.

A litany of evil smudges the page from line 2 through line 12. A parade of victims and victimizers file before the eyes of the narrator. The first seven lines form a lament while the last five lines name the victims and their victimizers. Each of the five lines is an J’accuse.

Throughout the sonnet the single line does what the four-line quatrain usually does. It makes a complete statement. For instance the second line notes that a worthwhile person is born to be a beggar while line 3 finds a worthless nothing, unjustly raised up and dressed in jollity, in a merry mood. Line 3 reminds me of the fop, prominent in Eighteenth Century English literature. The fop is the vain, overdressed dandy unaware that he hopes to be avoided by everyone in every room that he enters. “Oh no, look who just arrived.” He’s the one who has just been promoted over three others more qualified than he. Line two brings to mind Bobby Kennedy’s proclaiming that every baby born of woman in any one of the United States of America has an engagement ring on its tiny finger. And that ring is a promise of citizenship that carries with it the full protection of the Constitution. That promise is the guarantee as an American to the right of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Shakespeare’s second line “As to behold desert a beggar born” deplores that in his world that right had not been granted.

Lines 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 move from lament to J’accuse. Each of these lines accuses a perpetrator. And each of these lines exposes a mover and a shaker acting CUI BONO, for whose benefit? for what use? of what good? Each victimizer has made a victim for fear of being removed, replaced. Shakespeare, the master of words hates most miscalling, misnaming. Secondly, he hates the pretense of learning, the novice pretending to be an expert. Look with me if we dare at the five victimizers.

Line 8 reads, “And strength by limping sway disabled.” “Limping sway” is defective authority; any citizen in Atlanta ever heard of “defective authority”? I remember some years ago the Task Force leadership was at City Hall pleading for something. We were actually casting our pearls before swine. Robert S. Cramer, Jr., Chair of the Board, said to Mayor Bill Campbell, “Mr. Mayor, we own a huge building on Peachtree Street; we believe we have rights.” Campbell’s response in front of 12 people was, “Bob, you have rights; we have enforcement.” In 1995 the Task Force had the strength to apply for and to obtain $12.4 million that was dispersed among shelters throughout the greater Atlanta area. Campbell held a copy of the check for the media lying that the city had applied for and had gotten the $12.4 million. A shelter provider in my hearing said last month that the Task Force’s dispersement of that money was the only time that the accounting was fair. The Task Force since 1995 has been “disabled” constantly, unremittingly since 1995. Debbie Starnes came alive following the Super NOFA federal grant in 1995; the present Czar was on City Council. She saw then that federal bucks were to be had. The calculating Starnes as member of the City Council had her work cut out for her. Starnes, like Bruce Gunter, that safe point of light, is always close to the money. The “sway” in Shakespeare’s sonnet is that unsteady authority that pulverizes threatening strength. J’accuse Debi Starnes; J’accuse defective authority mirrored in the likes of Bill Campbell. J’accuse Shirley Franklin. J’accuse them in the names of 600 men at the Pine who will soon be on the streets of Atlanta fulfilling the wishes of defective authority.

Line 9 reads: “And art made tongue-tied by authority.” The City of Atlanta has never, not one time, not now, not ever addressed the homeless population. Pages of discovery (evidence) showing that Central Atlanta Progress, the City of Atlanta and the sad Atlanta Journal-Constitution have for years plotted to overthrow Anita Beaty and the shelter at Peachtree-Pine. I’m under lock and key not to BLOG what I know and who I know e-mailed whom in order to block funding, coaching reporters, asking about lenders, speaking with mega-million bucks donars, etc., etc. In a few days when all the court stuff is on record, I can post and, honey, I will. But for now, “Art” for Shakespeare meant articulation, oration, expression and truth telling. The Atlanta Journal Constitution has lied incessantly. It is Debi Starnes’ newsletter slandering the Task Force. Reporters for the local newspaper are coached by the brass at Central Atlanta Progress on which “spin” to take. And all the while those of us who know the truth are “tongue-tied” without the resources to pay the water bills because the creditor to whom we owe the water bill has illegally (tortious interference) stopped our funding. J’accuse Central Atlanta Progress. J’accuse Deborah “the whole truth” Cook. J’accuse Debi Starnes. J’accuse David “Great News” “Wake up Atlanta” Wardell. And I accuse these leaders of our city in the names of the hundreds of homeless men whose hands I shake all the time.

Line 10 reads, “And folly (doctor-like) controlling skill.” Remember Shakespeare despised almost as much as lying with the language, miscalling with the inaccurate words. Some years ago I was an honorable member of the Atlanta Kiwanis Club. I loved my time there, and those good folks let me speak once, with some trepidation I might add, theirs and mine. Before I left (the Task Force nor I could pay the dues), Horace Sibley, Esquire, was the quest speaker. He was invited to speak because he was then (and now I think) the Chair of Mayor Franklin’s newly appointed Commission on Homelessness. Among other things this retired attorney said that the commission which he chaired would end homelessness in Atlanta in ten years. Sibley mosied around Peachtree-Pine for ten months taking notes while his lovely daughter painted dozens of homeless people in our little art studio. “And folly (doctor-like) controlling skill” portrays Horace Sibley talking about ending homelessness. I’m sure he’s a brilliant lawyer, but he knows as much about ending homelessness as a rabbit knows about teaching Sunday School. J’accuse Hosby in the names of the 600 men who languish tonight at the Pine wondering where Team Goliath will stab us next,

Line 11 reads: “And simple truth miscalled simplicity.” The first century Christians were first called Chrestians, or simpletons. Brilliant Atlanta attorneys will soon show the Superior Court of Fulton County that the Atlanta Task Force for the Homeless, Inc. has methodically, regularly and unremittingly been depicted by the local paper, agents of city hall and the wise Central Atlanta Progress to be at best simpletons who harm rather than help homeless people. Misnaming! Why this lie? Let me count the ways. One answer is enough! LOCATION! LOCATION! LOCATION! Bruce “safe point of light” Gunter sidled up to Anita Beaty years ago in order to deliver the building to developers. He couldn’t deliver; he’s been an enemy ever since. No money; no Bruce. The Task Force has told the truth about homeless people since its inception. Truth speaking to power rarely wins. J’accuse Debi Starnes for telling people not to buy the Pine because it would soon be foreclosed. J’accuse the local paper for consistently reporting lies about Peachtree-Pine from lice infestation to human squalor. J’accuse them in the names of the twenty men thriving in transition at the Pine.

Line 12 reads: “And Captain Good attending Captive Ill.” When Bob Cramer graciously asked Mayor Campbell for relief, we all went there trusting that ILL would help. After Andy Young and Maynard Jackson, the Task Force has approached city hall only with hat in hand. In fact, the only times we’ve seen Shirley Franklin was when she drove by the Peachtree-Pine facility, slowly, taking notes. I think Hosby did that for her (that’s Horace Sibley). One of our staff members named him “Hosby” because we love him so much. He’s our friend. And he bats cleanup on Team Goliath.

The Pretrial hearing in the Superior Court of Fulton County is set for September 21, 2009. I can’t tell you yet what I know. I yearn to talk about subpoenas and motions and possible sanctions and 4000 pages of stuff and city attorneys and other Keystone Cops stuff like that. I asked a knowledgeable person how in blazes could the city have 4000 pages that mentioned the poor little David, the ruined Task Force. One smarter than I asked me, “How long did you say Debi Starnes has been running her mouth?” Speaking of “dismal pattern of relentless repetition.” Incidentally those 4000 pages are now in the hands of Task Force lawyers, along with subpoenaed e-mails from Central Atlanta Progress. I’m permitted to write that. As the Reverend Joseph Lowry has said, “And the beat goes on.” Stay tuned my little ones. The fat lady has not yet begun to sing. Watch for “Does A Worm Squirm?”

James Wilson Beaty, PhD
Jeremiah 22.16

Exposing the Heart

The Franklin/Starnes team is committed to the disappearing of the homeless population from Atlanta. All the members of that team from Hosby to memo signer Bonnie Ware declare that they are the “molders of human fate and the givers of all good.” (Daniel Berrigan) They are not what they say they are, and they are not what they appear to be. When pressed, like the chameleon these lizards change their color. The truth brings out their true colors.

The comment quoted in full below was sent to my blog. I post it because it so perfectly captures the “heart” and posture of the present City of Atlanta government. I pray that everyone reads it and digests it. I thank Riptide for so clearly articulating the heartbeat of city hall. I’ve asked that this comment be put into a pamphlet for distribution everywhere as my feeble blog these days has only a few hundred readers. The Goliath team applause will be thunderous when they behold their reflexion in Riptide’s mirror. Again, let me thank Riptide for showing his heart. The writing is adequate in spots, needing grammatical polish here and there. Like President Clinton, Riptide is not sure what is is. Enjoy this “liberal guilt” basher.

“It is ridiculous how your organization continues to subsidize the lives of able-bodied male drug addicts and alcoholics who frankly are too lazy to hold a real job. Having conversed with many of the people you claim to help, its (sic) apparent that their lives consist of trying to hustle up a few dollars each day so they can support habits and then returning to your shelter for a little bit of sleep so they can do it all over again the next day. This is not real poverty like in the third world-its (sic) self-inflicted misery that no amount of money will cure.

If you really cared about the lives of your residents, you would mandate drug and alcohol testing as a condition of their stay. Otherwise you are just assuaging your feelings of liberal guilt, at the expense of this great city and those you pretend to want to help.

I’ll bet you don’t have the guts to post this on your blog.”

The Franklin/Starnes Newsletter Silent On The Dynamite Explosion

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has served for years as the newsletter supporting the Shirley Franklin/Czar Debi Starnes team committed to disappearing homeless people from Atlanta. The team effort, of course, includes the elimination of the largest and most “disgusting” shelter in the Southeast, the Atlanta Task Force for the Homeless, Inc.
The June 24 edition of Atlanta’s only “daily” carried the slanted, half-truth article “Water on at Shelter.” This is an example of the one-sided coverage always given the Task Force. The article states accurately that a “Fulton County judge on Tuesday ordered the restoration of water service to the Metro Atlanta Task Force for the Homeless shelter.” The article stated further that the Task Force must pay $15,000 by next Tuesday. The above is true. But it is only a smidgen of what was ordered in that Superior Court, Judge Ural Glanville, presiding. I can’t wait to tell you. I can’t wait to tell my children. I can’t wait to tell my grandchildren. I can’t wait to tell the souls who collect my garbage. They work for these phonies.

I will not write a word of the proceedings in that courtroom until our attorneys approve my songs. I will tell you that legal terms like “discover” and “subpoena” and ” “depositions” filled the air. I will tell you that the judge said among other things to the city attorneys that this hearing is about far more than unpaid water bills. I will tell you that four City of Atlanta attorneys looked as though they had fouled their small clothes. I will tell you that Czar Debi Starnes stared at her cell phone as though she wanted to eat it. I will tell you that the Commissioner of Water, Rob Hunter, chief of the Department of Water Mismanagement with his ever-present purple head, was having some difficulty not swallowing his tongue. I will tell you that memo-signing Bonnie Ware stared at the cranium of Czar Starnes as if to say, “Hold me, mama!” The Goliath team staggared.

You know, I know City Hall always wins, momentarily. Colossians 2.15 tells me so. But I have the strangest sense that these lying pretenders in the days ahead will know, at least, that they have been in the ring.

Failed Power Has Its End

Jeremiah 22.16 is a pivotal verse smack dab in the middle of a section that spells out specifically what kings (leaders) are commanded under God to be.

Recently I read a friend’s traffic summons from a court in Clayton County, Georgia: “You are hereby commanded to appear “ at court at a particular time on a particular day.  Clayton County doesn’t mess around.  Neither does the God of the Hebrew Bible.

No less vehement are the prophets and the psalmists on the responsibilities of kings (leaders) to their subjects who are poor.

In Jeremiah 22.16 the prophet speaks about Josiah and then quotes Yahweh: 

He defended the cause of the poor and needy, and so all went well.  Is that not what it means to know me? 

Truth speaks to power in this verse.  Truth is represented by the prophet himself, Jeremiah of Anathoth.  Power is represented by the king himself, Jehoiachim, King of Judah.  Truth tells the leader that he must emulate his father, good King Josiah.  I would love to have witnessed the preacher telling the king that the king must learn from his father, as the father “judged the plight of the poor and needy and all was well with him.”   What is required is clear: argue the case of the poor and needy; reach out to those whom God has given you to shepherd, and you will know the heart of God.

John Calvin’s commentary sees good king Josiah as having not only abstained from wrongdoing but also for having intervened to protect the innocent oppressed from the ravishes of injustice.  Because of those actions, the king lived well, enjoyed the love of his people and showed evidence that he knew God.  Can we not learn from this leader to love justice, do mercy and walk humbly with our God?

I don’t know whether or not Atlanta’s Mayor Shirley Franklin or her homelessness consultant, good Methodist Debi Starnes, ever heard of Jehoiachim or Josiah or John Calvin or even Jeremiah.  But one thing is sure:  it is never too late for them to repent of their attitude toward and treatment of the poor and homeless people in our city.  They can reverse their tortious interference with the Task Force’s private and contracted funding.

Jehoiachim could not find it in his heart to serve the poor.  His end was clear from the prophet’s words in Jeremiah 22.18.19:  

Therefore saith the Lord concerning Jehoiachim the son of Josiah, king of Judah, ‘They shall not lament for him, ah my brother or ah, sister.  They shall not lament for him, saying, Ah, lord! Or Ah his glory!

He shall be buried with the burial of an ass, drawn and cast forth beyond the gates of Jerusalem.’

The HAG Had a Baby – or – “Don’t Look Them in the Eye”

NOTE: The following satire was written ten years ago. It is as pertinent today as then because the draconian treatment of homeless people in Atlanta and the malicious villainies against the Metro Atlanta Task Force for the Homeless have only intensified over the last decade. – James Wilson Beaty, Jeremiah 2216, December 29, 2008.

 

HAG is an acronym for the Homeless Action Group, the creation of Atlanta City Councilperson Debi Starnes. Recently the HAG had a baby. Neither the birthday of the child nor the identity of the father has been determined. But Downtown Atlanta glimmers with pride and progress, as no one thought the HAG, only three years old, was equipped to perform such a tour de forceas the making of a baby. But she did it; a child is born; a son is given; and his name shall be called HAP, or the Homeless Action Plan. That’s right, HAP, son of the HAG. And his mother requests that his name never be spoken without her name trailing closely behind: HAP, son of the HAG. Understand that HAP, son of the HAG, was not conceived without purpose like so many babies these days. He was conceived to do something. He has a mission; yea, he has a mission statement. HAP’s latest mission statement reads: “To update and expand previous planning to create a 5-year regional action plan which will identify, encourage and develop resources for homeless people and people at risk of being homeless, establishing them in communities where they have extended support systems.”

The mission statement raises several questions, grammatical and pragmatical. School children know that every pronoun must have a clear antecedent. The reference of the word “them” at the close of the mission statemtent is ambiguous. Are the “resources” to be established in communities, or are the “homeless people” to be established in communities? Or both? Does the “5-year regional plan” refer to the time anticipated for the plan to be implemented or to the time to be spent “planning” or talking or meeting? If we have learned anything from the HAG, we have learned that she meets. She meets religiously, monthly at Georgia Power in Atlanta without the trace of a homeless person as far as the eye can see. Some veteran providers attend, but the bulk of the crowd consists of HAG camp followers, showing a newfound zeal to help the homeless.

Could the ambiguity of the mission statement be intentional, or is this merely poor writing? The HAG’s true raison d’etre has never been admitted and never will be admitted. But dividing in order to conquer is as old as Eden and as obvious as Napoleonic warfare. And dividing providers throughout the community has been the order of the day for the HAG from her inception three years ago. The HAG introduced a new day for funding. Hungry providers, always in need of money, sniff the cooking pot of greens now guarded by the watchful eye of local governments. And the local HUD lights hover in the background like vultures protecting their own. Whenever the air reeks of money, compassionate crowdsalways follow. If winter comes, can spring be far behind? But the wrenching truth is that committed service providers have had their funding threatened or cut if they were not seated and smiling at the HAG’s table.

Setting aside the grammar in the murky mission statement, what could possibly be meant by “establishing them in communities where they have extended support systems”? “Extended support systems” for homeless people? Where are the extended support systems? What are the support systems? How will they be developed? Who will develop them? Are these communities located in this hemisphere? Has one homeless person been consulted by a member of the HAP brass? Do any members of the HAP brass even know a homeless person? Has one “community” opened its magnanimous arms pleading, “Send us your homeless”? Has one hamlet in the region cried out, “We have ‘extended support systems;’ please send us your homeless”? And most important, has one homeless mother or father gone to the HAG and asked to be “established” where support systems abound?

At the April 13, 1998 kick-off meeting at Georgia Power in Atlanta, the HAP convener, an Episcopal priest, thanked everyone for the great start. He thanked power hitters like The United Way, and especially Central Atlanta Progress (CAP) for the “muscle” it brings to the table. Imagine, if you can, the powerful and resourceful Central Atlanta Progress setting a whole new agenda, just to help homeless people. CAP’s newsletter, The Atlanta Journal Constitution, carried the front page story “Help for the Homeless!” It’s a miracle! Can such an about-face be in the offing? CAP? Can it be? Are these the worthies who gave Atlanta the “sanitized zone,” the “quality of life” ordinances, the “community court” and the glee-inspiring “urban camping legislation”? Are these the movers who ordered 9,500 arrests of homeless men the year before Atlanta hosted the Olympics? Are these the shakers who applauded their own performance saying, “We have taken back our streets and parks from those people; now we have to make sure we keep them:? Are we now to dream that these quality-of-lifers have quality of life in mind for “those people”?

As darkness follows the day, CAP’s mindsprings gave downtown Atlanta the “Ambassadors,” to keep our sidewalks cleared of refuse. These thinkers are the Samaritans whose Chief of Ambassadors comforted a group of employees in one of Atlanta’s leading law firms. He cautioned the group not to look the homeless in the eye. Just call an Ambassador who will call the police, he instructed. And these quality-of-lifers plan support systems for homeless people? Atlanta’s local paper quoted a CAP lieutenant as saying he would rather have a toxic waste dump in downtown Atlanta than to have a facility that served homeless people with AIDS. That very person, with the same sensitivity, now watches over the Homeless Action Plan, HAP, son of the HAG. And HAP intends to establish homeless people in “communities where they have extended support systems”?

Acronyms, although ancient, suit best in times like these. We have ARC, BARK, MARK, PARK, BAD, MADD, PAD, SAD, CAP, MAP, RAP, HAG, HAP, HUD, MUDD, SPUD, ACOG, GOG, and MAGOG; the list goes on ad nauseam. Creators of acronyms are often more cute than clever. When I first heard of HAP, son of the HAG, I thought of Thomas Hardy’s powerful poem, “HAP.” In that terrifying piece Hardy calls God a “purblind doomster” who zaps man whimsically without pity or regard. Do the forgers of HAP, son of the HAG, know their name means “chance, luck, a happening that is usually an unfortunate one”? Surely they know. And perhaps they know that the Scots define “hap” as a covering, a covering like a blanket, something an urban camper might use against the cold.

The street-wise homeless people in Atlanta know that HAG is an acronym for Homeless Action Group. Talking every day with homeless people, I am asked often, “What does the HAG do?” I say, “She meets.” Questioners press for more substance; I respond redundantly, “She meets.” If the HAG has fed or clothed or sheltered or washed or transported or responded favorably to one homeless person, no evidence exists to prove it. Homeless people flee the HAG, knowing she has spawned seven ordinances that guarantee the criminalization of homelessness. Being homeless in Atlanta marks a person as a potential criminal about to be arrested for being.

And the HAG meets every month to listen for the jingle of money: money, real, imagined or stolen that might be on the way from HUD. However, if an agency, old or new, in the Atlanta area hopes to get funding to help homeless people, that agency had better be in good standing with the HAG, and it had better be seated and obedient “at the table.” The process for funding in the 1997 Super NOFA (Atlanta) was as corrupt as the word can define. Rigging guaranteed that $1.3 million HUD dollars were granted to one non-existent entity while experienced providers were drummed out by the HAG’s process. The three previous years had seen $14 million go to providers through the auspices of the Atlanta Task Force for the Homeless. But the HAG tells the tale that disruptive, cantankerous cranks like the Atlanta Task Force for the Homeless blocked the money channel. The catch phrase these days is “at the table,” i.e. we must have consensus. Everybody from HUD to BUD wants players to smile and get along as one big happy family. Consensus now means swallowing all the draconian abuses of palace politics and all the pallid panaceas of temple theology. A big grin must remain while funding is slashed and reputations are maligned. We are asked to “move to a higher level of collaboration” as the knife twists and while homeless males are ground under the boot of the quality-of-lifers who cry for consensus. And prospects of a fair 1998 Super NOFA are dim if not non-existent.

Literary allusions to the HAG are not as obvious as are those in Hardy’s brilliant poem “HAP.” But they do exist. Chaucer’s Knight encountered a witch who was conquered only when given her way. Whitman described a cold sea as an old crone. But the perfect likeness of our HAG comes from the pen of the Italian, Virgil. In Book IV of the Aeneid, he gives us a goddess named Rumor. If ever the HAG had a twin sister, it’s Rumor, a large, feathered monster who owns an eye under every feather, a mouth under every eye and two ears beside each mouth. Spreading half-truths and destroying the innocent fuel her every move. Virgil writes, “No other evil was ever swifter.”

Unfortunately, the birth of HAP, son of the HAG, does not indicate a lessening of our fiend’s fury. Venom that perpetuates itself with the lie lives forever. Just how far HAP, son of the HAG, will fall from the tree of the mother who bore him no one can tell. As an infant HAP is the spitting image of his ugly mother. But talk around Central Atlanta Progress, Atlanta City Hall, the Atlanta Journal Constitution and other bastions of truth has it that the HAG is pregnant again. Technology says it’s a girl, and her name is SAP, honoring all who follow her brother, HAP, son of the HAG.