Fresh Loaf

Estimated number of people who were homelessness in Fulton and DeKalb counties for at least part of 2007: 22,000

Number of homeless children enrolled in metro Atlanta schools: 17,267

Percentage of Atlantans interviewed in 2007 who reported job loss or unemployment as their reason for homelessness: 42

Percentage of unemployed Atlantans as of October 2007: 4.4

Percentage as of October 2008: 6.8

Average monthly rent, in dollars, for a two-bedroom apartment in Atlanta: 834

Current monthly welfare benefits, in dollars, for a woman and two children: 282

Number of donation meters installed in downtown Atlanta to discourage the homeless from panhandling: 5

Number of new meters to be installed in other Atlanta locations: 11

Dollars, per month, that Baltimore collects from 10 meters in its main tourism district: 100

Sources: Hands On Atlanta, Tri-Jurisdictional Homeless Census and Survey 2007, United Way of Metropolitan Atlanta, Metro Atlanta Task Force for the Homeless, Georgia Department of Labor, ajc.com

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Mayor Shirley Franklin was joined by Police Chief Richard Pennington, Councilwoman-turned-Homeless Czar Debi Starnes and a cast of dozens Wednesday to kick off the city’s latest effort to put a stop to rampant downtown panhandling.

Right away, this program seems to benefit from greater support from and coordination with the business community. And its clever slogan, “Give change that makes sense,” is sure to appeal to visitors and residents already reluctant to hand their coinage over to aggressive beggars.

Part of the initiative is a citywide marketing campaign whose goal is to get people to quit giving money to folks who accost them for spare change. There’s even a new website, stoppanhandlingatlanta.com, that directs the generous among us to instead give donations to local social service agencies via the United Way’s Regional Commission on Homelessness.

Starnes put it succinctly: “We want people to understand the difference between the homeless and hustlers.”

(more…)

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Tiny to the point of appearing shriveled, Jessica looks much older than her 48 years. Which shouldn’t be a surprise, considering she has HIV, suffers from mental illness and has been homeless perhaps half her life.

For the past several years, she lived in the bushes outside City Hall, which is where former Atlanta Councilwoman Debi Starnes first met her. Starnes estimates that she had suggested to Jessica on at least 50 occasions that she go to a shelter or ask help from a social-service agency – only to be cussed out.

Last week, however, Jessica said she had changed her mind; she was ready to check in to the city’s Gateway Center, where she could be assigned temporary housing and evaluated for treatment as part of a comprehensive program aimed at stabilizing lives gripped by addiction and psychosis. The last they spoke, Jessica told Starnes she must’ve been sent by God to help her.

Such are the incremental victories in the battle against homelessness.

Read the rest of this article here.

(Photo by Joeff Davis)

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