Peoplestown Residents Stand Up to Mayor Reed's Use of Eminent Domain

On Thursday, Nov. 17^th, a group of Peoplestown residents and the Housing Justice League rallied together at the house of resident Tanya Washington, bringing attention to the eminent domain proceedings brought against Washington and her neighbors. In front of reporters and cameras from various television stations, Washington led the charge in explaining the issue at hand.

The city of Atlanta is using “eminent domain” as a legal maneuver to redevelop a block in Peoplestown. The City cites street flooding as a primary reason for neighborhood redevelopment-- but it is simply a rouse. In the areas of Peoplestown hit hardest by flooding, notably the Turner Field stadium parking lots, the City has chosen to NOT redevelop. Early drafts by engineering consultants suggested a park and pond be built besides the stadium and AWAY from the neighborhoods. But, the City has avoided this, and chosen instead to forcefully displace Peoplestown residents so they may build atop their homes.

Commenting on this situation, Washington noted, “We have lawyered up, and are ready to take on the City. If the city wins this fight, they can set a dangerous precedent of taking over neighborhoods via eminent domain. It’s important that we win this legal battle and show that neighborhoods can defend themselves. We have a good legal and advocacy team, so I am confident in our abilities. Get ready.”

Alongside Washington, residents and allies held signs that read “Stop displacement,” “Mayor Reed, do the right thing,” and “Our homes are not for sale.” The rally echoed actions in the past, when housing justice members called Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed to prioritize neighborhood residents over profit, and not displace people in the name of city beautification. Actions in this campaign once again will be directed towards City Hall and the Mayor’s Office, urging for policy that creates an Atlanta for all.

Longtime Peoplestown resident Mrs. Darden was perhaps the rally’s energy source. With a loud and resonating voice, she led the group in civil-rights era chants and declarations. Gathering the crowd together and pushing their spirits forward, Mrs. Darden (and her husband Mr. Darden) represent the best of the Peoplestown neighborhood, and who exactly is at stake in this fight against displacement. Despite the enormity of the task ahead, Mrs. Darden spoke with only strength and certainty. “We will stay in our homes,” she said repeatedly. “And we will not be moved.”

Sign and share the online petition.

Action continue on Monday, Nov. 21^st. Residents and housing justice members will testify and protest against councilmembers who voted to put residents outside their homes-- including Councilperson Carla Smith who introduced the ordinance authorizing eminent domain in Peoplestown. This will be followed by a sit-in at the Mayor’s office to demand that he stop litigation and use his executive authority to keep residents in their homes. The Housing Justice League invites supporters to attend these events, and get out the word to friends, family and colleagues, in person, through phone, and via social media.  

Residents Bring Concerns About Turner Field Development to Mayor Reed

Yesterday American Friends Service Committee joined the TurnerField Community Benefits Coalition at city hall to hold a press conference and deliver a letter to Mayor Reed. Over sixty residents from the neighborhoods surrounding Turner Field showed up on Tuesday morning to send a clear message to the Mayor and city official. One of the residents, Doristine Samuel who’s lived in Mechanicsville since 1957 stated, “We used to have a beautiful community. We had everything we needed. Big development has destroyed our neighborhoods, from the highway to the Olympic stadium, to Turner Field. We need development done right, with community members involved. We know the Mayor wants a legacy, but it must be a legacy we can live with.”

The letter asks the Mayor to make a public commitment to completing the Turner Field Livable Centers Initiative Planning Study (LCI) process before negotiating any development deal. It requests that Mayor Reed use the recommendations from this study to initiate a competitive bidding process for the massive redevelopment project. “Our communities have suffered long enough as a result of top-down development,” says Summerhill resident John A. Colabelli. “We don’t want a quick fix solution. This is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to restore the surrounding neighborhoods and reconnect downtown to the entire south side of Atlanta.” The LCI Planning Study grant was awarded to the City of Atlanta in February 2015 and represents the largest LCI grant ever-awarded by the Atlanta Regional Commission. The study is due to be completed by July 31, 2016.

After delivering the letter to the Mayor’s office in mass the group split up into teams and made sure every city council member, every county commissioner, and every Atlanta County recreation authority representative had a hand delivered letter by the end of lunch.

American Friends Service Committee is excited to continue to support this important coalition work. We are informed by the idea that communities should be controlled by those that live in them. We can no longer afford to have a few well connected folks who already live in overabundance make massive profits off public-private development deals while the surrounding communities fall into decay. We have the coalition effort can turn the tide of bad development deals in Atlanta and encourage all to get involved!

The Turner Field Community Benefits Coalition is a coalition of 42 neighborhood associations and advocacy groups representing thousands of residents in the communities surrounding Turner Field. The Coalition seeks community participation in decisions related to the redevelopment of the Turner Field Stadium area.

Vist the Turner Field Community Benefits Coalition's press page to check out all the press coverage from the letter delivery!

Solutions Not Punishment Coalition Moves Forward

 American Friends Service Committee was proud to provide our space this week for the Solutions Not Punishments Coalition's community meeting. A member of the Group, Misty Novich, put together this write-up which we are happy to publish.

On July 1^st, 2013, the Solutions Not PunishmentsCoalition (SNaPCo) convened a group of stakeholders for a “Coalition and Community Meeting” to discuss an alternative proposal to address street-level prostitution/sex work in Atlanta.

This progressive proposal and community meeting came after SNaPCo and a wide range of diverse groups came together to stop the medieval “banishment ordinance” in February of this year. The Atlanta City Council and Mayor Kasim Reed attempted to pass this inhumane, ineffective ordinance without any input from those most directly affected, or from those most connected to those affected. This ordinance would have further punished alleged street-level sex workers by banishing them from certain areas or the whole city, even if they live in that area where they work.

Street-level sex workers already face a disproportionate amount of violence, abuse, and other struggles. Street-level sex workers have mortality rates 200 times those of other women of similar age and race. They are 18 times more likely to be murdered than their counterparts and have a workplace homicide rate 51 times higher than the second most dangerous profession, liquor store clerks. About 75% meet criteria for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), 46% have attempted suicide, and one in five has had a police officer demand sex acts from them in exchange for not being arrested. When jurisdictions increase arrests and punishments for sex workers, their risk of harm increases significantly, and they are less inclined to report abuse.

The Atlanta City Council knows that arresting, fining, banishing, or otherwise further punishing street-level sex workers will not reduce prostitution – it will, in fact, increase prostitution. Instead, they are likely responding to the demands of the vigilante group Midtown Ponce Security Alliance (MPSA), some members of which are ex-cops. This group has been known to go around shining flashlights in the faces of trans and gender non-conforming people around Midtown, take pictures of them and post those pictures online or different businesses, like gas stations, calling them “trans gangs.” Trans and gender non-conforming folks report similar harassment by police, whether they are engaging in survival sex work at the time or simply being who they are, as well as hiring discrimination generally, which is one reason given for doing sex work in the first place – to generate income, or in exchange for shelter and to meet other basic needs.

After defeating the banishment ordinance, Mayor Reed was forced to start a Working Group on Prostitution (WGOP), which has met monthly three times and will meet again on July 12^th, 2013 at 9-11am at Atlanta City Hall, 55 Trinity Ave. This WGOP is supposedly meant to come up with a good alternative to banishing people to deal with street-level prostitution, but so far community members are unsatisfied with the progress, the emphasis on law enforcement, and the lack of community input (as these meetings are usually on Friday mornings, when many people are at work). SNaPCo and allies decided not to wait for the WGOP to come up with a good alternative proposal, as a significant number of people on the WGOP supported banishment originally.

Given that most street-level sex workers engage in sex work as a means of generating income and surviving, SNaPCo and others wish to offer an alternative proposal that addresses the needs and motivations of sex workers instead of trying to push them away or lock them up. SNaPCo came up with the draft proposal, “Pre-Booking Diversion Program for Street-Level Sex Offenses.” This proposal calls for connecting alleged sex workers, if they choose, directly with case managers for individualized services and treatment instead of arresting or booking them at all.

Next steps for the city in the proposal include halting the ineffective arrest sweeps of street-level sex workers, accepting Ford Foundation money for travel to visit Seattle’s Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion (LEAD) program to learn from them, and officially networking and mobilizing service providers and case managers to begin formalizing an infrastructure for a solutions-based policy. This proposal’s implementation would likely cost much less, have much greater impact on reducing prostitution, and help some of the most marginalized people in society access what they need to improve their lives.

At the Coalition and Community Meeting, representatives from many different groups, organizations, and perspectives met to discuss the proposal - what we agree on and what we would add, clarify, or change. All ideas and feedback were recorded and we moved closer to a great ordinance that the whole community would support. SNaPCo and our allies will continue to work together to ensure that our decision-makers make the right choices on what policies around street-level sex work will replace the current outdated, ineffective ones.

If you would like more information about SNaPCo or to get involved with our work, please visit facebook.com/groups/snapco.

(Pictured: Ms DeeDee Chamblee, founder of LaGender, starts off the Coalition and Community Meeting by giving background on this struggle.)

Thoughts On My Occupy Atlanta Arrest

I'm on trial this week, and likely to take the stand today to testify about my October 25th arrest in the park. I've been reflecting a lot about my choice to stay in the park that night, and my reasons for joining the Occupy movement last year. Below are some of my thoughts:

There’s more than on reason I chose to remain in the park after 11pm October 25^th last year.

First the obvious, I don’t believe the freedom of speech has a curfew, and our freedom to assemble applies at 12pm and 12am.

Both of these rights clearly trump a fairly recent Atlanta municipal code targeted at keeping the growing number of our cities homeless out of sight.

To be clear, the reason I joined the Occupy Movement was not too simply invoke my constitutional rights.

It is the unprecedented, historic wealth inequity that brought me and thousands into the movement.

Never has there been a stronger need to dramatize the injustice of our false economic crisis, never has there been so few who control and own so much and the symptoms are clear; from the explosion in the homeless population, lack of good jobs, plummeting wages for regular people while CEO compensation is at an all-time high, schools defunded, and more Georgians locked up than ever.

Occupy presented an opportunity to highlight, in a very visible way, our cities, our countries economic injustice which sees 1% of the population controlling an overwhelming amount of our resources.

I was called to the park because I believe we are not in a crisis of economic resource, but rather a crisis of economic priority. We are not broke, there is no fiscal cliff, it’s a moral one. There’s plenty to go around.

I was in the park because I believe we need a shift, a revolution of values. The sparks of the Occupy movement were very intentionally put out by heavy handed police tactics, infiltration of the movement on every level, targeted arrests and surveillance of individuals seen as leaders, and the eviction of our freedom of speech and freedom of assembly.

Occupy Atlanta Trials

This week I've been in court everyday from 9am-7pm every day along with over 80 other defendants in the Occupy Atlanta trials. It looks like some of us will be in court through Friday evening.

It's been eventful. On day one, during our first lunch break, about 50 of us marched to the mayors office demanding that he answer the subpoena to appear in court, which he ended up refusing to. Mayor Reed instead sent his lawyer and had the subpoena quashed on the grounds that his role in the charges against us was irrelevant/The irony is that Reed clearly had everything to do with the charges, and that he took a very hands on  approach with occupy Atlanta.

I personally, along with Joe Beasley, was pulled into Mayor Reed's mobile command unit during the part occupation where it was made clear the Mayor Reed was not as concerned with the issues that brought on park occupations all over the country(wealth inequity, corporate greed) as he was his image. Mayor Reed wanted the visible demonstration to go away.

Whether it's evicting a movement that aims to challenge historic wealth inequity, or pushing our cities homeless into the darkest corners of the city, Mayor Reed seems bent on making the symptoms of poverty invisible instead of dealing with them.

On day one we also had a number of defendants make plea bargains for a variety of life circumstances. All the folks that plead out were basically let of with community service and almost no one got a fine.

Today around a dozen folks were dismissed for lack of evidence. It seems that the APD failed to document any of the arrests correctly, which can likely lead to every arrest being dismissed. We'll see. Looks like this trial will go on through Friday.

American Friends Service Committee was proud to provide headquarter space for Occupy Atlanta during the park occupation. We also provided a series of nonviolence workshops for the movement.