Atlanta Housing Authority Creating Homelessness: 10,000 residents to be displaced

Submitted by anitalawbeaty@a... on April 27, 2007 - 6:39pm.
login or register to post comments

This session will be on: June 28, 2007 - 1:00pm

It will be held at: Large Dining Room room at the Task Force for the Homeless

View schedule

Organization Description

The Task Force has served for twenty-six years as the central coordinating agency through which the needs of homeless men, women and children are recorded, resources assessed, and gaps between needs and services for homeless people are documented for advocacy. We are striving to achieve our mission through direct emergency services, technical assistance and planning, and legislative policy advocacy. In 2006, between 48,000 and 68,000 persons experienced homelessness in the metro Atlanta area. The Task Force for the Homeless serves a minimum of 800-1000 individuals every day, that is between 23 and 35 percent of all homeless people in the metro area. Some of the greatest challenges for homeless individuals include finding shelter and resources; meeting the reqirements to receive shelter and services; creating enough stability to find employment and permanent housing; knowing application procedures and having access to mainstream resources and, in the majority of cases, trying to discover what resources exist. For many, that challenge is voiced with the question, “What do I do now?” The initial point of contact for people seeking assistance is often through the 24-Hour Homeless Assistance Hotline or Street Outreach. Once needs are expressed during a thorough Intake, each person is placed in appropriate shelter/housing and/or resources as they are available. The next point of contact may be through the Task Force Transportation Program to access shelter. When emergency shelter space is full to capacity, Outreach or Hotline Staff offer refuge in our Overflow Program. During the night, homeless people receive sanctuary; during the day they are able to begin looking for employment, housing, identification and general assistance through our Day Service Center. Our Transitional Housing Program has become an important step for many individuals seeking to transition back into the community in a stable environment with support services. Direct experiences with thousands of homeless men, women and children, provide the Task Force with documentation about the causes and conditions of homelessness and the gaps in housing and services. With that information we are able to advocate on the local, state, and national level for changes in public policy and legislation to prevent and end homelessness. The issues of affordable housing, livable-wage employment, universal healthcare, and civil rights form the core of our policy and advocacy work. We believe that in order for an agency to advocate, it must offer services; and if you offer services, you must also advocate. The Task Force for the Homeless is the heart and soul of the Community at Peachtree-Pine, which is being developed as a sustainable community within a smart, green building, including homeless, formerly homeless, never-been homeless people living, working, playing, learning and helping each other. The Task Force for the Homeless is the heart and soul of the Community at Peachtree-Pine, which is being developed as a sustainable community within a smart, green building, including homeless, formerly homeless, never-been homeless people living, working, playing, learning and helping each other. This vision of inclusive, celebratory and creative community is important as a demonstration of inclusion. Peachtree-Pine sits in the middle of downtown Atlanta, demonstrating the possibilities for an alternative community that ends homelessness and serves as a model for re-including excluded people in our buildings, on our blocks, in our neighborhoods and in our cities.

Session Description

Public Housing Authority Creating Homelessness: The displacement of 10,000 Atlanta residents

This session will be organized around the residents of the AHA properties that are scheduled for demolition. Those resident leaders and their neighbors tell the horrifying story of forced evictions, loss of protection and the wholesale displacement of decades-old communities in a massive land-grab by developers and the local government that enables the privatization of land, housing, water and utilities.

The participants will meet residents, leaders, advocates and see the Photo Voices Project production; the will also meet alternative, independent media representative who have chronicled this process that is organizing to stop the evictions and the demolition.

Participants will be persuaded to join this local movement during the Social Forum and to help get the word out nationally and internationally -- word that a community is organizing itself and its supporters to stop the bulldozers. By the time of the USSF, there should be a legal filing for an injunction.


First Name

Anita

Last Name

Beaty

Contact E-mail

anitalawbeaty@aol.com

Proposing Organization

Metro Atlanta Task Force for the Homeless

Organization Website

homelesstaskforce.org

Position or Title

Executive Director

Contact Telephone

404-729-5366

Alternate Telephone

404-730-5007

Event Day

Thursday, June 28th (Consciousness + Awareness Raising / Current Struggles)

Contact Address

477 Peachtree Street

Contact City

Atlanta

Keywords

Advocacy
Aged, Elders
Communities
Economies
Anti-corporate power
Antiracism
Capitalism
Civil Society
Class struggle
Community-building
Community organizing and local development
Development
Economic Disparities
Families
Homelessness
Housing
Public
Public, Right to
Human Rights
Human Rights, Civil & Political
Human Rights, Economic, Social, and Cultural
Inner City (see also Gentrification, Tenants)
Movement building
Networking
Poverty
Social exclusion
Social rights
Sustainable development
Tenants (see also Gentrification & Inner City)
Urban Issues (see Gentrification, Housing, Inner City, Local Development)

Contact State

GA

Contact ZIP

30308

Person Reviewing

jerome