Jim Beaty, whose wife is the executive director for the Metro Atlanta Task Force for the Homeless, writes his own blog. Last week he posted that
…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.”
The whole post is worth a read. I am all for finding ways for the homeless to not be homeless. I’m for all kinds of strategies and sometimes there may even need to be a bit of a nudge in helpful directions. But any form of coercion must be coupled with real alternatives. Enough real alternatives simply do not exist. More to come…
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