ATLANTA GOES FOR THE GOLD
Chepesiuk, Ron
Atlanta Goes for the Gold And the poor get left in the dust by ron chepesiuk The Olympic Games going on right now in Atlanta represent a major financial boon to the city's business community and...
...It's going to put a tremendous burden on welfare groups at a time when financial support for their programs is shrinking...
...The city gave residents Section 8 certificates to help cover the cost of new housing, but finding a suitable apartment has been difficult...
...The street sweeps intensified the closer we got to the games," he says...
...That doesn't mean we are going to try to displace anyone...
...Many landlords prefer not to rent to welfare recipients...
...Atlanta has a chance it has never had since the Civil War to redefine itself and present an image it wants to project to the world, as opposed to the mind-set most people who come to the South bring with them," says Bill Crane, director of marketing and communication for the city's Chamber of Commerce...
...They're trying to make us move out quicker...
...They formed Tenants United for Fairness (TUFF), a vocal group that injected itself into the planning process for the future of Techwood/Clark Howell Homes...
...The economic boom will not continue after the Olympics...
...While the International Olympic Committee and Atlanta's corporate sector will make millions from the most commercial games in history, they will not provide any money to help relief organizations deal with the serious social problems that have plagued Atlanta for decades and that are being exacerbated by the Olympics...
...When it opened in 1936, Techwood was the pride of the New Deal era...
...I have been in the project for twenty-one years and it's home to me," McDey said the day before she vacated her apartRon Chepesiuk is a freelance writer based in Rock Hill, South Carolina...
...Monroe moved to another project, Wells Court...
...The city is not allowing anyone to loiter downtown, says Charles Lewis, another homeless Atlantan: "They don't want people going back to their country after the Olympics and saying Atlanta has a lot of homeless...
...Georgia Tech is home to the brand-new Olympic Village, which received some $40 million from the Olympic Committee and millions more from a state bond to build new dormitories, an aquatic center, and a central commons...
...Activists counter that city nuisance ordinances have been used to arrest and detain homeless people to make the city look good for tourists...
...In July 1991 the Atlanta Housing Authority awarded a bid to PATH, a group of Atlanta developers, to redevelop the area around the housing project...
...Until May 13, McDey was one of several thousand residents of the Techwood/Clark Howell Homes, a group of buildings that includes the nation's first public-housing project...
...I haven't seen any trickle-down effect," says Timothy McDonald, pastor of the First Iconium Baptist Church and chairman of the Olympic Conscience Coalition, an alliance of students, residents of housing projects, labor and religious leaders, and others who feel left out of the Olympic decision-making process...
...That agenda, says Loring, included routine arrests and sweeps of homeless people...
...We are unaware of any specific incidents of police harassment," says John Quigley, public-information officer for the Atlanta police department...
...To prepare for the big event, the city has quietly swept the poor out of the way...
...PATH's plan called for the destruction of all on-site units and replacement with "mixed-income" housing, with only a small portion of units reserved for public-housing residents...
...If you look homeless, the police want to know where you are going, what you are doing, if you have an I.D...
...The job market will be depressed and the unemployment will be high, as will the homeless population...
...We went two weeks without hot water...
...I've raised five kids here and I've never had a problem...
...McDonald says the estimated 97.000 new jobs created during the Olympics will be short-lived, and the estimated $4 billion in revenue generated by the games will not benefit low-income Atlantans...
...They've cut off my water without telling me," says McDey...
...McDey is still bitter about the city's drive to get rid of her and her neighbors...
...Atlanta's selection as an Olympic city created the right political climate to level the project...
...The use of criminal law to sweep people off the streets who are different is unconstitutional," says Laughlin McDonald, director of the southern regional office of the ACLU...
...Three years later, however, residents charge that the Atlanta Housing Authority is dragging its feet...
...Police have come and kicked in our doors and terrified the people...
...They're trying to make us move out quicker...
...They promised to find us replacement housing, but I've had to go out myself and try to find somewhere to live," says Willie Monroe, who has lived with her daughter in Techwood/Clark Howell for three years...
...His most recent book is "Sixties Radicals Then and Now: Candid Conversations With Those Who Moved an Era...
...City officials and members of the Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games deny that the city has conducted street sweeps and intensified pressure on the homeless leading up to the Games...
...ter for Homelessness and Povertv to name the city one of the country's five "meanest" cities for homeless people...
...says Ed Loring of Open Door...
...They don't care where we go...
...Activists are not optimistic that things will get better for the poor in Atlanta when the Olympic Games are over...
...I'm being thrown out...
...ment...
...The project is located downtown, right across the street from Coca-Cola headquarters and the campus of Georgia Institute of Technology...
...The Olympic Games have provided the justification for a whole lot of things the business community wanted to do...
...TUFF successfully defeated the PATH plan...
...Police have come and kicked in our doors and terrified the people...
...They just want us out...
...The people who are going to be put in jail are people who are black, who can't spell, who look different . . . people with a different status in the community...
...The central business district has been working to push the poor from the city center as a way to get conventioneers, tourists, and suburban white people to come downtown and spend their money...
...As a result of the group's efforts, the housing authority was forced to bargain with the residents and come up with a new plan, which was approved by the majority of residents...
...But by the 1980s it had become an eyesore for corporate Atlanta, largely because of overcrowding...
...Civic leaders concede that a $5-million renovation of Woodruff Park includes the installation of new benches with arm rests that are meant to keep people from lying down...
...Many of Atlanta's vacant buildings that were used by homeless people when shelters were full have been bulldozed to clear the way for Centennial Olympic Park and other construction projects...
...During construction of the new project, it also guarantees temporary, off-site replacement housing for people who are displaced...
...Coca-Cola and Georgia Tech have wanted to get rid of the poor people in Techwood Homes for years," says Ed Lor-ing, an activist with the Open Door Community, which serves Atlanta's poor and homeless...
...Atlanta's treatment of its homeless population prompted the National Law Cen'We went two weeks without hot water...
...To do that, the corporate sector has had an agenda for some time...
...Atlanta Goes for the Gold And the poor get left in the dust by ron chepesiuk The Olympic Games going on right now in Atlanta represent a major financial boon to the city's business community and civic leaders...
...Virginia McDey is one of the low-income Atlantans who found herself in the path of the Olympic money machine when it came rolling into town...
...McDey was forced to move so the housing project could be flattened and "revitalized" as part of the Olympic Village...
...Atlanta activists charge that thousands of poor people have been displaced from their homes, while the homeless are subjected to repressive measures that violate their civil rights...
...The crackdown is under way—we're being harassed twenty-four hours a day instead of ten" says John Buchner, a homeless man who has lived in Atlanta for the last ten years...
...But residents were not about to accept the plan without a fight...
...Atlanta began passing the ordinances soon after it was awarded the Olympics in 1990...
...Residents don't want to move into larger public-housing projects with higher crime rates, but their options are severely limited...
...The closer we get to the Olympics, the more intense is the harassment," Robert Ferrell, a spokesperson for the Atlanta Union of the Homeless, said earlier this year...
...McDonald predicts...
...The new development plan includes more low-income units, and guaranteed replacement housing for everyone—either in the reconstructed project, or in a different area of the city...
...McDey and Monroe also complain that the housing authority has made life miserable for them...
...The ACLU of Georgia has filed suit challenging the constitutionality of Atlanta's parking-lot ordinance, and is considering suits against other ordinances that may violate freedom of speech, association, travel, and due process...
...Police deny that they have harassed residents at the project...
...The Atlanta Housing Authority let the homes deteriorate, and then the Olympic games came along and got the bulldozers going...
...It is even illegal for anyone to walk across a parking lot if his or her car isn't there...
...What has happened to the Techwood/Clark Howell Homes graphically illustrates Atlanta's priorities...
...We have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to promote Atlanta as a business mecca...
...The new laws prohibit people from being in vacant buildings, or sleeping in parks, on the grass, or on benches...
...Wells Court is not what I wanted, but I have no choice...
...From our perspective, we want to ensure that everyone who comes to the Games has a safe and happy experience, and we have to maintain the flow of pedestrian traffic," says Shirley Franklin, a spokesperson for the Atlanta Committee...
Vol. 60 • August 1996 • No. 8
