Activists remember the homeless who have died

Photo: Al Viola

For the 22nd year, the Metro Atlanta Task Force for the Homeless organized a march Nov. 1 through downtown to City Hall to remember the men, women and children who died without shelter. Several hundred residents of the shelter at Peachtree and Pine took part along with activists from peace, justice and faith-based organizations.

With the message “Homelessness is a matter of life and death” on the lead banner, the demonstrators carried three coffins past the highrise hotels and office towers that flank Peachtree, Atlanta’s major street. Chants demanding housing and jobs echoed off the glass-covered buildings. Restaurant workers, pedestrians and passing motorists signaled their approval as the loud, colorful march passed by.

Later that evening at a requiem mass held at The Cathedral of St. Phillip, the names of 48 people who had died homeless in Atlanta this past year were called out.

The Task Force, which operates the large emergency shelter just north of the downtown area, has taken legal actions against big business leaders and associations, charging them with illegally conspiring to deprive the shelter of public and private funding and instigating the foreclosure on the building.

With the eviction blocked, the Peachtree-Pine shelter continues to provide thousands of poor people with help getting all kinds of assistance; sheltering hundreds every night; offering art space to painters and photography, bicycle repair and computer training; and providing a performance and meeting space.

The Task Force has earned the enmity of the corporate elite by relentlessly challenging the criminalization of poor people and the privatization of public space, exposing the racist and class bias of urban “renewal” in Atlanta.

For more information, go to www.homelesstaskforce.org.