August, 2005

A New Segregation ... Of The Poor

By John Slaughter

There are over 7,000 homeless in Atlanta. On any given night 3,000 of the homeless are on the streets. Over half work at day-labor or other minimum wage jobs. The HUD Fair Market Rent for a two-bedroom apartment in Atlanta is $864 a month. Even working full-time at minimum wages, a worker could only afford $268 a month for rent. The median price for a home in Atlanta is $165,000. To purchase such a home would require an annual income in excess of $52,000. Over one-third of Atlantans earn $40,000 or less.

The response of the corporations, in partnership with the political structure, is to criminalize the poor. A series of “Quality of Life” Ordinances are in the process of being passed by the City Council. Already there are provisions banning loitering or sleeping in the downtown parks, and public urination (even though no public restrooms are provided), and now an ordinance is being considered to ban panhandling in an area that has been designated the “Tourist Triangle.”

Already as many as 1,000 of the homeless are being jailed per month in Atlanta. Yet the Police Benevolent Association says they need this new law to clean the streets of the poor. The Anti-Panhandling Ordinance, if passed, will only accelerate the process of criminalizing and “segregating” the poor. Ed Loring and Murphy Davis, of the Open Door Community, state “The Ordinance calls for a Vagrant Free Zone, where rich people play, watch games, plan war, eat, and go to unpublic toilets. This ordinance is to make the city ‘secure’ for business people, sheltered students, tourists, conventioneers, and all the new loft dwellers. By removing, jailing, hiding, and running off the poor, the elites think they will be safe.”

This oppressive legislation has provided the spark for what is being called a “movement of people rising as never before.” City Council chambers have been packed to overflowing by the homeless and poor themselves, as well as many advocates for the poor and homeless across the city. They have forced the Council to postpone the vote on the issue, when the mayor and Central Atlanta Progress, representing the downtown corporations, thought they had a done deal.

The mayor and the political structure, in league with Central Atlanta Progress, has also heralded the opening of the Gateway Center, a new facility for the homeless at the now refurbished old city jail. They claim this will provide 300 new beds and other services for the homeless. But in the face of the enormity of the problem, this is not even a very good bandaid. And to pour salt on the wound, the mayor has closed another shelter providing 110 beds, and another housing 400 may be moved.

The Atlanta Housing Authority has also announced plans to evict from public housing all of those who are not working, in school or in a workforce training program. This includes Section 8 housing. There are almost 14,000 adults who remain in public housing, and at the present time fewer than half are in compliance. This means thousands more will be thrown into the streets.

This is all part of the process of removing and segregating the poor that sometimes is called gentrification. Already Techwood Homes, Carver Homes, Eastlake Meadows and Perry Homes have been torn down and “redeveloped” with expensive homes and condominiums, forcing more of the poor into homelessness.

Nowhere is the plan of the corporations to enrich themselves and to remove and exclude the poor more clear than is the proposed Beltline Project, a multi-billion dollar development project that is headed by a joint partnership with Cousins Properties, Inc., among others. The mayor is a former employee of the Cousins Foundation, and owner Tom Cousins was her campaign manager. The head of the City Council is a senior vice-president at Cousins Properties, and a son-in-law of Cousins is heading up the Beltline Project for the City.

This has all led Viola Davis of the Unhappy Taxpayers Association to declare “Our Constitution is up for sale.” Others have characterized it as a hostile takeover by the corporations of city government, but it is clear that what is really going on is an interlocking and merger of business and government. The corporations are making billions in the process. Cousins Properties’ profits last year were $313.8 million.

A particularly sore point with the homeless and poor is the building of a new aquarium in downtown Atlanta. As one homeless person addressing the City Council said, “The housing of fish and not for humans is a shame.”

Billionaire Bernie Marcus, co-founder of Home Depot, put up $200 million for construction of the aquarium. He is one of the most aggressive in the campaign to rid the Tourist Triangle of the poor. Home Depot’s profits last year? $5 billion. While calling himself compassionate and sympathetic toward the homeless, the attitude of the corporate community is best summed up in an editorial in Atlanta’s newspaper: “Atlanta owes nothing to those demanding a handout.”

And a New Abolitionist Movement

But this movement is becoming much more than simply a resistance movement. They are going on the offensive, putting forth demands calling for an end to homelessness and poverty. They are demanding housing, jobs with livable wages, and health care for all. The corporate and political “partnership” has thrown down the gauntlet. The movement of this new class of poor is taking it up. If there is a new segregation of the poor, there is also a building new abolitionist movement.

Abolish homelessness. Abolish poverty. As the evil system of slavery was abolished, abolish a system that creates monumental wealth for the rich even as it creates abominable exploitation and misery for the new class of poor.