Fresh Loaf

UPDATE: The AJC reports that a judge has ordered the city to restore the shelter’s water service on the condition that the Task Force make a $15,000 payment by June 30.

Just after noon today, Anita Beaty, executive director of the Metro Atlanta Task Force for the Homeless was involved in a drive-by: Her pro-bono attorney pulled up to the curb outside the giant Peachtree-Pine homeless shelter; Beaty came out of the building and signed some legal documents, which were then stamped by a notary on the hood of the car; and the attorney then raced off to Fulton Superior Court to try to get a judge to restore water service to the shelter.

“Hopefully, we’ll get relief from the court,” Beaty said after the car pulled away. She said she expected to have a court hearing later in the day.

Beaty is in a race against time. The shelter stayed open last night, after the city had shut off its water because of unpaid bills, but had been ordered by Fulton County health officials to vacate the building by noon today if water service hadn’t been restored.

Although the Task Force had missed the noon deadline, Beaty said she was talking with county officials about getting an extension. In the meantime, well-wishers continue to drop off cases of bottled water.

“While the county strictly enforcing the law, they’re working with us to solve this problem,” Beaty said. “They’ve been very helpful.”

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Anita Beaty

UPDATE: Shelter stays open for now.

The water has been turned off again at the city’s largest homeless shelter and this time health officials have given the Metro Atlanta Task Force for the Homeless 24 hours to clear out of the building.

Back in December, the city shut off water service to the 100,000-square-foot shelter at the corner of Peachtree and Pine streets because the Task Force had more than $160,000 in unpaid water bills. A judge quickly granted a temporary restraining order to have the water switched back on, but gave the city the power to cut service again if the Task Force failed to keep up with a fairly strict payment schedule.

That’s where we are now. Anita Beaty, executive director of the Task Force, admits the group hadn’t paid its bill.

“We didn’t make the payments the last two months because we didn’t have the money,” she says.

Shortly after the water went off, investigators with the Fulton County Department of Health and Wellness showed up at the shelter and served legal notice that unless water service is restored within 24 hours, the building must be vacated.

“If they don’t vacate, the case will be turned over to law enforcement,” says April Majors, a public information officer with the county health department, who says she doesn’t believe it will come to that. “The management (of the shelter) is being very cooperative.”

Also, she says, if the Task Force doesn’t comply with the county order, it would be required to appear before the county’s environmental court.

The Task Force has until noon Tuesday to clear out of the Peachtree-Pine shelter, Majors says, unless it can restore water service — meaning drinkable water and working toilets.

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The AJC reports the Metro Atlanta Task Force for the Homeless has quietly put its Peachtree Street headquarters up for sale.

The asking price for the 96,000-square-foot building is $10.5 million, Kansas said.

“This is to weigh the options and see what can really happen,” Kansas said. “We’ve gotten a significant amount of interest from people local and out of state, but no formal offer yet.”

…

Kansas said that while he thinks the Task Force would “love to stay in the building, the fact of the matter is that the Task Force only uses about 30 percent of that entire building.

“It’s very under-utilized, and you’ve got a premium location and, frankly, a use that’s not desired on Peachtree,” [Gene Kansas, the developer handling the potential sale] said.

In 1997, Coke heiress Ednabelle Wardlaw purchased the former United Motors Service building for $1.3 million and donated it to the center. In a Dec. 2008 article about the shelter’s woes, executive director Anita Beaty told CL she was looking forward to an estimated $13 million renovation of the building.

If you’re in the market for prime property on the city’s most famous thoroughfare, submit your offer before the March 16 deadline.

(Photo by Joeff Davis)

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The Metro Atlanta Task Force for the Homeless is in dire financial straits, but it did manage to make an $8,000 payment on its delinquent water bill, the AJC reports today. Yesterday, the paper had a story detailing some of the other debts the homeless shelter is carrying, including more than $4 million in loans from private lenders.

Last Friday, we posted my article on the Task Force and its director, Anita Beaty, to this website.

Homeless task force Director Anita Beaty

It will also be the cover story of tomorrow’s print edition. But it’s gotten a fair amount of lengthy commentary that I’d like to share. Here’s Tina’s take:

I would like to challenge Creative Loafing to offer BOTH sides of this situation. This article was myopic in its scope, only presenting the views of those opposing the Task Force.

To that I would say that when I called local social-service veterans like the Atlanta Community Food Bank’s Bill Bolling, I had no idea what they would say about the Task Force. The impression I had after making these calls — including some to people not quoted — was that Beaty’s agency has alienated nearly all its peers. I didn’t come across any homeless service providers who believe the Task Force is doing a great job, so I think the views expressed in the story are representative of an unfortunate situation.

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The woman approaching is stooped and sunken-eyed, with a weather-ravaged face that hints she might be much younger than she looks. She carries a frayed backpack and when she speaks, it’s in the beaten-down manner of someone accustomed to asking favors.

The Peachtree-Pine shelter houses hundreds of homeless men.

“Thank you, Miss Anita,” she says, as she follows her subject along the sidewalk and through the side door of the Peachtree-Pine homeless shelter. “You’re always good to me, even when I stray.”

Anita Beaty assures the woman she’ll be taken care of and ushers her into a small lobby where other street people occupy chairs along the walls or gaze out windows.

“We’re the first place people can come so they don’t die on the street,” explains Beaty as she sits down for an interview a few minutes later.

As executive director of the Metro Atlanta Task Force for the Homeless, Beaty has run the city’s largest shelter on the corner of Peachtree and Pine streets for more than a decade. White-haired and grandmotherly, her appearance belies her reputation as a relentless advocate for the homeless, and in conversation, she comes across as so soft-spoken and unhurried that you’d never guess this is someone whose world is unraveling.

Earlier this month, the city turned off the water at Peachtree-Pine, citing unpaid bills totaling more than $160,000. Beaty quickly persuaded a judge to issue a temporary injunction to restore service, but her agency must comply with a daunting payment schedule or the water goes back off.

While water is the most immediate of the problems facing the Task Force, it’s far from the only one. It may not even be the biggest.
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Anita Beaty is right about one thing: City officials would love to shut down her enormous shelter at the corner of Peachtree and Pine streets.

Yesterday morning, the city cut off the water service to the former warehouse building occupied by Beaty’s Task Force for the Homeless. By evening, however, a judge had ordered the water turned back on. But unless Beaty is able to pay off a $160,000 water bill, the shelter may soon be forced to close down for good.

Anita Beaty

“It’s very serious right now,” says former Atlanta Councilwoman Myrtle Davis, who serves on the Task Force’s board of directors. “This is part of a concerted effort by the city to shut us down.”

Arguably so, but that doesn’t change the apparent fact that the Task Force owes $160,000 in outstanding water bills. Fulton County Superior Court Judge T. Jackson Bedford ordered the shelter to come up with $6,000 by Friday and another $3,000 or so by next Wednesday, and to develop a reasonable plan for paying off the rest of the bill.

“If they miss either payment, the water goes back off,” says Debi Starnes, another former councilwoman who now serves as Mayor Franklin’s Homeless Czarina.

(Photo by Joeff Davis)

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