Atlanta homeless wary as city closes its last-resort shelter

In this Aug. 7, 2017 photo, a man sits quietly in a warm room inside the Peachtree-Pine homeless shelter in Atlanta. For decades, as many as 1,000 people with nowhere else to turn could come off the street at Peachtree and Pine, no questions asked. But years of litigation wore down the shelter’s operators. After epic battles against the city, tuberculosis, bed bugs and other hazards, the Metro Atlanta Task Force for the Homeless settled out of court and sold its enormous industrial building to Central Atlanta Progress, a downtown business group.
(AP Photo/Robert Ray) — In this Aug. 7, 2017 photo, a man sits quietly in a warm room inside the Peachtree-Pine homeless shelter in Atlanta. For decades, as many as 1,000 people with nowhere else to turn could come off the street at Peachtree and Pine, no questions asked. But years of litigation wore down the shelter’s operators. After epic battles against the city, tuberculosis, bed bugs and other hazards, the Metro Atlanta Task Force for the Homeless settled out of court and sold its enormous industrial building to Central Atlanta Progress, a downtown business group. (AP Photo/Robert Ray) In this Aug. 7, 2017 photo, a man sits quietly in a warm room inside the Peachtree-Pine homeless shelter in Atlanta. For decades, as many as 1,000 people with nowhere else to turn could come off the street at Peachtree and Pine, no questions asked. But years of litigation wore down the shelter’s operators. After epic battles against the city, tuberculosis, bed bugs and other hazards, the Metro Atlanta Task Force for the Homeless settled out of court and sold its enormous industrial building to Central Atlanta Progress, a downtown business group. (AP Photo/Robert Ray)

By Associated Press August 25, 2017 5 min read

ATLANTA (AP) – Cities across the U.S. are trying to help the homeless find beds of their own, rather than a cot for the night. In theory, no one should stay in a shelter very long.

Atlanta is putting this theory to a hard, real-world test by closing its last shelter of last resort.

For decades, as many as 1,000 people with nowhere else to turn could come off the street at Peachtree and Pine, no questions asked. But years of litigation wore down the shelter’s operators. After epic battles against the city, tuberculosis, bed bugs and other hazards, the Metro Atlanta Task Force for the Homeless settled out of court and sold its enormous industrial building to Central Atlanta Progress, a downtown business group.

Relocating the people inside will be done in a “humane manner,” Central Atlanta Progress promised ahead of this month’s slow-motion shutdown.

“We’ll take it one step at a time,” said Jack Hardin, co-chairman of the Regional Commission on the Homeless, which is helping to manage the transition.