(APN) ATLANTA — On August 29, 2014, the Supreme Court of Georgia issued a ruling in two related emergency appeals brought by the Metro Atlanta Task Force for the Homeless. The court accepted the Task Force’s direct appeal; and dismissed the other appeal, an application for immediate review, as duplicative. The appeals case going forward is S14M1956. Meanwhile, […]
Read more(APN) ATLANTA — On Friday, August 08, 2014, Fulton County Superior Court Judge Craig Schwall issued an order lifting the stay of dispossessory, allowing Premium Funding Solutions (PFS) to pursue dispossessory proceedings against the Metro Atlanta Task Force for the Homeless; however, only in Fulton County Superior Court. Because the Superior Court rules require related cases to be […]
Read more(APN) ATLANTA — The struggle to get by for Atlanta’s most vulnerable citizens became more difficult this summer after two emergency homeless shelters serving Atlanta and Fulton County quietly shuttered their doors due to funding cuts to homeless services in the County’s 2014 budget. Jefferson Place, a 150-bed men’s homeless shelter, began notifying men in May 2014 that they […]
Read more(APN) ATLANTA — In yet another abrupt about-face from Fulton County Superior Court Judge Craig Schwall, the judge has ordered a July 11, 2014 hearing to reconsider whether to grant leave for Premium Funding Solutions (PFS) to seek a dispossessory, or eviction, of the Metro Atlanta Task Force for the Homeless, from the shelter they operate in downtown Atlanta, according […]
Read more(APN) ATLANTA — A former Atlanta City Councilwoman who served as a Policy Advisor to then-Mayor Shirley Franklin may have accepted a bribe to help carry out a conspiracy by downtown business interests to attempt to sabotage the Metro Atlanta Task Force for the Homeless, Special Master Frank Strickland ruled in an Order dated January 25, 2014, Atlanta Progressive […]
Read more(APN) ATLANTA — Special Master Frank Strickland, who was appointed to make conclusions of fact and law, and recommendations, to Fulton County Superior Court Judge Craig Schwall in the lawsuits concerning the business community and City of Atlanta’s well-documented conspiracy to sabotage the Metro Atlanta Task Force for the Homeless, has issued an order that is quite favorable to […]
Read more(APN) ATLANTA — The Urban Institute has released an interactive map showing where the nation’s affordable housing crisis is most acute. Not surprisingly, Fulton and DeKalb Counties are among the worst, in terms of the availability of housing that actual people can afford. The Urban Institute states: “Many Americans struggle to afford a decent, safe place to […]
Read more(APN) ATLANTA — On Tuesday, January 14, 2014, the Georgia Department of Transportation (GDOT) sent out two bulldozers to the underpass of I-75/85 and I-20 in order to eliminate around ten to twelve camping tents occupied by homeless individuals. Atlanta Progressive News reader, and former candidate for Atlanta City Council Post 2-at-large, Weslee Knapp, observed the incident and […]
Read more(APN) ATLANTA — Lost-n-Found Youth, Inc. is an Atlanta-based nonprofit corporation whose mission is to take homeless youths who are bisexual, homosexual, or transgender off the streets and transition them into more permanent housing arrangements. Lost-n-Found (LnF) was founded by activists Rick Westbrook of the Atlanta Chapter of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, Art Izzard of the Queer Justice […]
Read more(APN) ATLANTA — How is it that in Atlanta, Georgia, the birthplace of the Civil Rights Movement, the powers of corporate wealth and the bourgeoisie have managed to destroy public housing, decimate low-income communities, privatize public schools, privatize Grady Hospital, enact draconian anti-panhandling legislation, and carry out a war upon low-income people, despite the presence of so many non-profit […]
Read more(APN) ATLANTA — On Tuesday, January 15, 2013, the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against the Metro Atlanta Task Force for the Homeless in the shelter’s appeal of an earlier federal court ruling in its case against the City of Atlanta. The federal court ruling of US District Court Judge Thrash, dated September 21, 2011, had granted summary judgment […]
Read more(APN) ATLANTA — Mayor Kasim Reed said that he was vetoing legislation that passed City Council concerning aggressive panhandling because it was cruel, harsh, and inhumane; however, Atlanta Progressive News has learned that the Mayor’s proposal in fact provides for the same maximum jail sentence–180 days in jail–for any offense of aggressive panhandling, and adds a minimum jail sentence for […]
Read more(APN) ATLANTA — Barney Simms, the number two smiling face behind mass demolition of public housing and mass displacement of low-income residents in Atlanta, is no longer working at the Atlanta Housing Authority, Atlanta Progressive News has learned. Simms began as a critic of AHA and went on to hold the position of Vice President for External Affairs, doing most […]
Read more(APN) ATLANTA – Over the past few days Channel 2 WSB-TV News and Channel 46 CBS Atlanta have ran stories making major errors in regards to issues affecting homeless people in Atlanta. Channel 2 ran a report stating that the largest shelter in the southeastern US, the Metro Atlanta Task Force for the Homeless, was about to imminently close, citing […]
Read more(APN) ATLANTA — Councilman Michael Julian Bond (Post 1-at-large), who serves as Chair of the Public Safety/Legal Administration (PS/LA) Cmte of the City Council of Atlanta, has introduced legislation which seeks to increase the penalty for individuals convicted of aggressive panhandling to six months of prison time, for any third and subsequent offenses. Introduction of the legislation–which Bond said was […]
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