FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
For years, homeless folks have been sleeping at Central Ave between MLK Drive and Mitchell Street across from City Hall on a ledge that backs up into Georgia Plaza Park. Over the past month the number of homeless occupying the space has dramatically increased. The reasons are numerous. They include the looming closing of Peachtree and Pine; stricter admission criteria at Gateway; and of course the rise in the homeless population due to double-digit unemployment and the absurdly high home foreclosure rate. Why this spot? The ledge adjacent to the park is constantly warmed by exhaust rising from city ducts. A woman who has lived there for months stated, “The reason we are on this wall is because it’s much safer then under a bridge”. We are also aware that several local churches provide direct services at this location.
Occupy Atlanta found the homeless community to be extremely articulate and hungry to improve their lives. We became extremely concerned when we learned that the Capitol Police have informed the homeless that they will be forcibly removed Sunday or Monday evening. What’s even more disconcerting is that these victims will not be provided an alternative space to sleep. We know that the judges whose offices overlook the wall have been complaining about the image of homeless people sleeping outside the government building. Some have even gone so far as to claim the presence of homeless people on this wall represents an unsafe condition for government employees as well as for jurors. This forcible removal of people because they are homeless is a continuation of Atlanta’s inhuman strategy to deal with human beings that have fallen on hard times. Instead of forcing the homeless into the darkest corners of Atlanta, we should be addressing the human needs of these people. We should be addressing the growing cancer of poverty in our city.
Tomorrow at 2pm Occupy Atlanta will be holding a press conference on Center Street between Mitchell and MLK, near the Shrine of Immaculate Conception. We will be joined by civil rights leaders, politicians, members of several church congregations, and the homeless that stay there. We challenge the city to explore ways to address all homeless people as human beings first instead of public relations issues. We challenge them to treat all persons with respect and dignity. Atlanta can do better.
Occupy Atlanta is a social movement of protest standing in support of the 99% of Americans that are under the overwhelming political and economic influence of the wealthiest 1% of the population. Occupy Atlanta vows to tolerate no longer the greed and corruption of the 1%. The movement comprises people of many socioeconomic strata, ethnic backgrounds and political persuasions unified in their determination to invigorate participatory democracy and give voice and political power to the majority of the people.
All these homeless people are doing is trying to keep warm wihout hurting anybody else. To deny them this meager resource for sustainng themelves is shameful denial of their rights as human beings. The just thing to do, having become aware of their plight. would of course be to try to HELP them, not further HURT them!
The laws criminalizing poverty and homeless have been proliferating for decades. Only recently have the affluent come to appreciate the extent to which all of these ordinances and petty rules can be used to crush civil protest as well. Perhaps it’s a little sad that we casually disregarded what was being done to the homeless until we found ourselves inconvenienced by the rules, but in fairness, it’s not often that people can appreciate the full consequences of things that seem like good ideas at the time. Now that we are aware, we have an obligation to stand with these people and help them maintain what little safety and dignity they have managed to pull together for themselves.