Atlanta resumes homeless encampment ‘sweeps’
The city of Atlanta has resumed tent-city teardowns almost four months after its sweep of an Old Fourth Ward homeless encampment left an unhoused man dead.
On Monday morning, the city and the Georgia Department of Transportation commenced a “comprehensive closure and clearing” of a large encampment located beneath the I-75 and I-85 connector near Pryor Street, Mayor Andre Dickens’ office announced in a press release.
The move comes amid ongoing backlash over the death of Cornelius Taylor, who died in the city’s Jan. 16 sweep, after being struck by a city vehicle while sleeping in a tent on Old Wheat Street.
Taylor’s death spurred the Atlanta City Council to create a 90-day homelessness response task force, which on April 29 released a report with a list of recommendations on how to prevent similar tragedies during encampment closure operations.
The task force report prompted the city to adopt the new protocols for the May 5 encampment clearing, including advance warnings to residents and more thorough surveys of makeshift communities, as well as using a heat sensor “to confirm vacancy” before proceeding with heavy machinery to “dismantle and remove” tents and other structures.
But some housing advocates, like Housing Justice League, don’t just want homeless encampment closures — or “sweeps” — to be safer; they want them to stop entirely.
“Instead of pursuing true housing-first solutions, the city continues to displace unhoused residents through cruel and ineffective sweeps, pushing people into temporary shelters only to eject them days later, destroying their property in the process,” the group said in a press release before the city started clearing the Pryor Street encampment early Monday morning. “These practices waste public resources and further traumatize vulnerable communities.”
Federal cuts frustrate local efforts to combat homelessness
Since President Donald Trump took office in January, local nonprofits have increasingly struggled to help people experiencing homelessness find stable housing.
Due to a wave of federal workforce downsizing, Crossroads Community Ministries, which helps people secure government documents they need to get housing, is finding it harder to work with agencies like the US Social Security Administration and Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).
On most weekday mornings, a line forms outside Crossroads’ downtown office, made up of dozens of Atlantans seeking a lifeline from homelessness. But the group can’t meet the increasing demand.
“We have only three case managers in our core services program, and they can each see eight to 10 people a day — so 20 or 30 at most,” Tony Johns, Crossroads’ executive director told Atlanta Civic Circle. “That line sometimes has 60, 70, 80 people. It’s a situation we absolutely hate.”
Mass layoffs at federal agencies have also exacerbated funding uncertainty for nonprofits that rely on government grants to house people.
Jimiyu Evans, the co-CEO of Project Community Connections, said he’s anxiously awaiting word from HUD on the status of a $1.1 million rapid rehousing grant renewal that the organization depends on to continue providing rental assistance for about 125 people. He blames the communication lapse on federal staff shortages.
“We’ve got an award notification,” Evans said in an interview. “But we don’t have a contract. Without a contract, we won’t be able to move forward and pay the landlords.
Amsterdam Walk controversy highlights developer’s outsize influence
A plan to transform a low-rise retail strip just east of Piedmont Park into a dense, mixed-use complex with 1,100 apartments and about 150,000 square feet of new shops and offices has become the latest flashpoint in Atlanta’s ongoing debate over growth, transit, and housing affordability.
Tensions came to a boil on April 21, when the Atlanta City Council narrowly approved developer Portman Holdings’ application to rezone the Amsterdam Walk property at 501 Amsterdam Ave. from single-family residential and community business district to one allowing large-scale mixed-use development.
That enables Portman to build big and dense at the 11-acre shopping center, which is located in a cul-de-sac off Monroe Drive adjacent to the Atlanta Botanical Garden and the Beltline’s popular Eastside Trail.
Some housing advocates who support the project argue that the wealthy single-family neighborhoods nearby, like Morningside-Lenox Park, Ansley Park, and Virginia-Highland are starved for rental units — and that an influx of 1,100 apartments will help those communities meet the growing demand for housing.
But opponents, many of them Piedmont Park-area residents, argue the Amsterdam Walk redevelopment — which promises 1,435 parking spaces — will worsen an already dangerous traffic bottleneck at the intersection of Monroe Drive and Amsterdam Avenue, which is the only road out of the shopping center.
The controversy highlights the outsize influence powerful developers like Portman have over urban-planning decisions. The city council’s 8-6 decision to approve the rezoning flew in the face of opposition from the local Neighborhood Planning Unit (NPU-F), the Morningside Lenox Park Association, and the Ansley Park Neighborhood Association.
The plan also deviates from the Atlanta Beltline Master Plan. That was one reason the Atlanta Zoning Review Board rejected Portman’s rezoning application last June, citing the blueprints’ car-centric design and lack of mass-transit integration.
Indeed, the city’s recent decision not to build a streetcar track along the shoulder of the Beltline’s Eastside Trail has inflamed the community’s transportation safety concerns. Portman has been a vocal opponent of Beltline rail.
Today’s newsletter was written by Sean Keenan and edited by Meredith Hobbs.
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