Brookhaven’s ‘hidden homeless’ given a helping hand
The City of Brookhaven joined forces with The Salvation Army to help some of the homeless near the Peachtree Creek Greenway ease back into a stable housing environment. Shown here is an ‘urban camp’ along Peachtree Creek under North Druid Hills Rd.
Brookhaven, GA, July 12, 2019 - On a crisp winter morning last December, clouds of dirt flew into the air as federal, state, county and local officials gathered at the gala groundbreaking ceremony for the Peachtree Creek Greenway (PCG). However, in the weeks leading to the groundbreaking, Brookhaven officials had been faced with a challenge: what was going to be done to assist a small pocket of homeless individuals living along the creek? Their safety was at risk due to the large-scale grading, clearing, and digging soon to come.
Brookhaven City Manager Christian Sigman conducted a series of brainstorming sessions with Moe Trebuchon, Project Executive for the PCG venture, and Brookhaven Police Sgt. Jacob Kissel to devise a practical, humane plan. They did not want to take the hardline approach of swooping in and arresting them for violating the urban camping ordinance.There was one thing the trio knew for sure.
Instead, the group opted for a more compassionate and comprehensive approach of offering a “helping hand” to these individuals with the goal of escaping the vicious cycle of homelessness.
With its physical proximity to Peachtree Creek and possessing community outreach programs, The Salvation Army (TSA) was an obvious choice to assist with the idea. Capt. Kenneth Argot, Corps Officer of the Atlanta Temple Corps, and Caleb Louden, Salvation Army Mission Specialist, were engaged in the discussions and became immediately onboard with the proposed partnership and a plan began to emerge.
“Unlike how many people assume, the homeless aren’t all derelicts or drug users,” noted Sigman. “Many are simply victims of life situations such as job loss, derailed by the ripple effect from a bad divorce, or a teen thrown out of the family home. To ignore the human side of the homeless is to ignore our own humanity. As humans, when we come in contact with a person in need, we either more towards compassion or towards indifference. As City Manager, I choose compassion.”
According to Louden, the homeless people that he works with usually fall into one of three categories: those struggling with substance abuse, people who have fallen on hard times; and people with severe mental health challenges. “If someone experiences a crisis, whether financial, relational or otherwise, and doesn’t have a good support network, he or she could easily become homeless,” he noted.
At the nominal cost of $10 a day per person, the City of Brookhaven was able to designate funding to lift at least six people out of squalid environs under the North Druid Hills and Clairmont bridges and put them on a, sometimes rocky, road to a normal life. One person exited the program after getting a job in a downtown hotel and another before getting into his own housing situation. That daily cost provided these “clients” (as they are referred to, once in a Salvation Army program) with a roof over their heads, food, clothing, counseling and any needed medical attention.
“For those who did not take advantage of the Brookhaven/Salvation Army arrangement, they have always been welcomed to The Salvation Army one day a week for a shower, food and clothing,” said Louden. “This gives us the opportunity to focus on their situation and steer them in the right direction to get them out of homelessness. It also allows us the time to build relationships, to get to know them and their individual needs and goals and move them in the right direction. If anything, contact with those involved with the greenway project has initiated a dialogue and pathway to extend to them the help they need.”
Making middle-of-the-night visits to the homeless camps, Kissel and Louden handed out water and snacks to garner trust and made an offer to individuals found under the bridges: spend the next 120 days at The Salvation Army Red Shield Shelter’s 340-bed facility and participate in counseling sessions. “When someone goes into this program, TSA provides them with a bed, housing and counseling,” said Trebuchon. “They help them get their life organized around finding and keeping a job, saving money and assist with finding secure living accommodations.”
The program has had a success rate marked by peaks and valleys. Some clients drifted in and out of the program, others realized months of sobriety only to temporarily relapse. If clients relapse, TSA case managers strive to keep working with them, often revamping their treatment and counseling programs to get them back on track. TSA rehab case managers are available throughout the day and evening, but it is still up to the individual to check in and take the initiative to pursue the different aspects of their strategy. This is important because, as they edge closer to leaving homelessness, they need to maintain this initiative to be successful.
“The main thing to remember is we are talking to a diverse group of individuals, each with his or her own unique set of problems that can vary from person to person,” said Kissel. “There is no ‘one plan fits all’ approach that can be applied to everyone. These individuals often can’t find the help they need and deserve in the first place, forcing them into homelessness. We wanted to
make sure these individuals within our city were aware of the programs available to help them escape their situation.”
Statistics on the homeless in America from the National Alliance to End Homelessness are sobering. More than half a million people currently meet the definition of homeless in our country and, of these, 7,000 live in Atlanta. Wallethub compared stats on over 180 U.S. cities and ranked Atlanta as the 11th “Most Needy City in America.”
Therefore, it should come as no surprise that small clusters of homeless communities exist within Brookhaven city limits and can vary in size, depending on the location. They are not just camped along creeks or under bridges, but can often be found wherever they can manage to blend in such as behind abandoned or empty store fronts, along isolated service roads, in pockets along Peachtree and Buford Highways or just beyond the tree line bordering commercial properties or vacant parcels of isolated property.
Has there been a reduction of the homeless in the PCG area? Is the program over?
Reflecting over the past six months the program has been in effect, “success” is marked by various degrees. A significant factor affecting the success of someone’s exit from homelessness is the amount of time they’ve been living a homeless existence. “If they are homeless for a long period of time, it is much more difficult for them to exit homelessness because the skills they have acquired to survive are not useful in the new lifestyle they are pursuing,” added Louden. “And since most of our clients are middle aged to seniors, they are more likely to have some considerable health challenges. Homelessness can rapidly age a person.”
“I’ve made monthly inspections in this area,” said Kissel. “We have begun to see a decline, but because Phase 1 of the greenway ends at North Druid Hills, we’ve had to shift our focus about where we want to do our outreach next. We still pop in near the underpasses where they may be and give them our card, describe the ways we may be able to help them and contact information at the Salvation Army. We do not see any evidence that we are ‘pushing’ them into other areas of the city.”
Those involved with this project have come away from the experience personally changed in some way.
“The biggest impact for me is knowing we have utilized resources at our fingertips, knowing we have tried to give these individuals a better life or opportunity instead of continually locking them up for urban camping violations or for soliciting on the overpass,” concluded Kissel. “Seven years ago, if you had asked me if I’d one day be handing out water and fruit to individuals under bridges that were clearly breaking the law, I would have told you no way. Now, our stamp as a city and as a police agency is focused on quality community policing. We are going to utilize every resource that we have to make sure we are doing what is right for our community and, like it or not, these individuals are part of our community.”
For Louden, one memorable story born from this effort is a poignant one regarding faith. “It was about 4 or 5 in the morning when we did our outreach along the greenway,” he remembered. “Still dark outside, we had our flashlights shining over toward one man who later
said he was praying to God when we walked up. ‘I will finally surrender to you Lord, I will live the way I know I should live if you will just get me out of this (homelessness)’ was what the man later recalled and seconds later we were standing there with our flashlights offering help to get him into the shelter. He was losing hope at that point, at the end of his rope, and we came along at just the right time to help him and within a few hours he was in a shelter and he has been there ever since, making progress.”
“This isn’t about just reducing the number of homeless people in this area,” said Trebuchon. “The better view is that we are potentially helping a small group of people get to a better place in life through this effort. It is an ongoing process. I don’t believe we are ever going to be ‘all done.’ It would be naïve to think that. There are people becoming homeless every day and if you don’t help them break the cycle, they are simply going to be homeless somewhere else. This isn’t a story about ‘cleaning up and moving on.’ Instead it is about doing the right thing to help some unfortunate people escape their plight and strive for a better situation.”
For more information about The Salvation Army USA | Metro Atlanta Area Command, its programs, services or volunteer opportunities, visit https://salvationarmyatlanta.org/
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