Open Door
Community, which serves homeless, to close in 2017, by Shelia Poole, 7/14/16,
AJC
Homeless
men and women will have one less option for meals and other support when the
Open Door Community closes its doors in January.
The
program has been a fixture for more than three decades at 910 Ponce de Leon
Ave. and a much-needed lifeline to the city’s homeless. It provided a place for
the homeless to be fed and to shower and get medical treatment and evaluations.
Open Door Community also has a prison ministry.
The area,
though, has developed significantly since Open Door Community began. Residents
and business owners have complained that it is an eyesore and about the number
of homeless who come there for help.
“This is
a letter that we never thought we would have to write, and it’s breaking our
hearts,” the leadership team said in an open letter on its website. “We have
come to a time that the Open Door Community cannot move forward in
the way that we have lived and worked for the past 35 years.”
While
some parts of the ministry will continue, including its newspaper, Hospitality,
the building will close.
The
letter was signed by Murphy Davis and Ed Loring, Gladys and Dick Rustay, Nelia
and Calvin Kimbrough and David Payne.
A woman
who answered the phone said they would not be immediately available for comment
because they were working against a death penalty case.
The
leadership had always assumed that they would “die doing this work and living
the life in place at the Open Door,” the letter continued. “But at this point,
there are not enough able-bodied committed community members to continue our
regular services and care for the elders as we begin to require more help.”
While
they trained a younger generation to take over the primary leadership, many of
those people have left, some starting families or working somewhere else and
“sadly, sometimes returning to the trap of addiction.”
http://www.ajc.com/news/local/open-door-community-which-serves-homeless-close-2017/38ZM2vP3l172bk7twHro3O/
2 comments:
Peachtree Pine across the street from Crawford Long is under legal battles. 2 Shelters in Fulton County have beeb closed by a 5 in favor 2 against vote of the Fulton County Commision. They are Jefferson Place Men's shelter for drugs and alcohol recovery and Springdale Place for Women with Children. None of the shelters had and serious charges against them. All worked with a number of groups to get the job done. See National Coalition to End Homelessness.
also these shelters do not get funds from the city of Atlanta rather must divide federal money
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