Fresh Loaf

Anita Beatty of the Metro Atlanta Task Force for the Homeless alleges that the city conspired to shut down her Midtown facility.

A lawsuit filed by the Metro Atlanta Task Force for the Homeless that accuses the city of Atlanta of using “improper, illegal and unethical means” in an attempt to shut down the organization’s controversial Peachtree-Pine shelter will get its day in Fulton County Superior Court on Sept. 21.

The 23-page filing alleges that the city has used a multi-pronged approach since 2007 to try and shut down the shelter — the largest of its kind in Atlanta, and, according to neighbors and city officials, a magnet for crime in a gentrifying corridor.

City Hall officials have damaged the organization’s reputation and ability to compete for funding, the task force’s lawyers claim, by delaying certification needed to apply for grants, making defamatory remarks to private donors, and cutting off water service to the shelter for unpaid bills. The lawsuit also accuses officials with Central Atlanta Progress, a civic booster group, of instigating the media to report negatively on the shelter.

The lawsuit asks the judge to stop the city from collecting on the shelter’s water bill debts, defaming the task force, and refusing to issue the certification it needs to seek funding. (Here’s a link to a PDF of the task force’s lawsuit.)

A.J. Robinson of Central Atlanta Progress strongly denies any conspiracy between the downtown organization and City Hall to shut down the task force. In an interview with CL, Robinson claimed that other local organizations were more effective than the task force when it comes to helping people break the cycle of homelessness.

“It’s not about the homeless population,” Robinson said of the dispute. “It’s about a very poorly managed and poorly operated operation. I wish we could influence the media to shine a light on this organization and how the people in there are not being served. There are better facilities around the community that can serve that purpose.”

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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.”

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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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