Kasim Reed: No Water for Homeless People

Kasim Reed, Atlanta's Mayor

Prison investors say, "Hurry and evict Atlanta's homeless people. Arresting them for vagrancy increases our prison profits!"

Georgia Supreme Court Takes Homeless Task Force Case, as City Threatens Water Shut-off Again
By Matthew Charles Cardinale, News Editor, The Atlanta Progressive News (September 20, 2014)
View the article on our website and post comments by clicking HERE.

(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, the City of Atlanta has again threatened to turn off the Task Force's water due to unpaid bills that the City claims amount to approximately 580,000 dollars, unless the Task Force pays the amount purportedly due by Monday, September 22, 2014.

Yesterday, Friday, September 19, the City refused to accept a cashier's check from the Task Force for 100,000 dollars, or to make a payment plan for the past amounts owed.

Atlanta's corporate media, particularly the "Fresh Loaf" blog, have predicted the Task Force may have to close, even quoting the United Way of Metropolitan Atlanta as saying they have an alleged transition plan in place for the homeless men, women, and children at the shelter.

However, the Task Force tells Atlanta Progressive News that they have emergency plans to transition to an independent water supply, which includes a rainwater catchment system and contracting with a private entity to ship in water.

"The rainwater catchment system we're already done implementing. In the meantime, we have private resources coming in with water on Monday. We expect to have alternative sources of potable water, and we're asking people to bring water," Anita Beaty, Executive Director of the Task Force, told APN.

"The main thing is, right now, this is part of our plan to become sustainable, and not to depend on funding, public or private, but to be sustainable in this building, with our residents. This could be a model project. This is our first step toward that," Beaty said.

"If anybody [such as the United Way] has alternative space, we've needed to know it every single day. Now they say they are going to open up 150 beds at Springdale, we say hallelujah, where have they been?" Beaty said.

"We don't expect to go anywhere, there's no eviction order. The sharks are swimming, the sharks are circling. They smell blood, but we say, wait a minute, you're a little premature. They can turn off our water. If we have... alternative sources for potable water, we cannot be evicted. It would take a process that really belongs to Fulton County. We have to have potable water available - it has to be drinkable. That's what we're planning to do," Beaty said.

SUPREME COURT OF GEORGIA TAKES DIRECT APPEAL

The Supreme Court of Georgia accepted the Task Force's direct appeal of an order by Fulton County Superior Court Judge Craig Schwall, dated August 08, 2014, in the Task Force's litigation with Premium Funding Solutions (PFS), Central Atlanta Progress, Manny Fialkow, and other co-conspirators in the effort to sabotage the homeless shelter.

As previously reported by APN, that August 08 order allowed PFS to file a dispossessory action against the Task Force in Superior Court, lifting a stay that has been in place for four years.

Presumably, the dispossessory action would have been transferred to Schwall, where it would have been stayed.

PFS did not even wait one day, filing their dispossessory action onAugust 08, following up with a Motion to Compel Payment of Rent on August 11, 2014.

The Task Force then filed a notice of appeal in Superior Court, giving notice of its plans to undertake a direct appeal to the Supreme Court.

On August 25, 2014, the Task Force filed a Motion for Stay/Supersedeas, asking the Supreme Court to stay the lower court's proceedings; and on August 26 the Task Force filed an Interlocutory Application with the Supreme Court.

The Task Force enumerated several errors in its Motion, including:

"1. Having all of the parties before it and jurisdiction to hear all claims, the Court erred in finding it was compelled to authorize one party to bring a separate dispossessory action over the same transactions and occurrences. Continue reading at "Atlanta Progressive News," which is having a fundraiser at this time:

We are now in our 2014 fundraising cycle. Our goal is to raise 5,000 dollars throughout the year in 2014. So far, we've raised $2,329.98, with only $2,670.02 left to go! Can you help us reach our goal for the year with a donation of five dollars or more? Thank you to our readers for your support!
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Atlanta plans a big, beautiful new stadium that will cost billions. Atlanta opened its new Center for Civil and Human Rights this spring, which cost roughly $2 million. But the city will turn off the WATER at the homeless center. Good job, Reed and prison investors. See photographs below. 

“Woe to those who scheme iniquity, who work out evil on their beds! When morning comes, they do it, For it is in the power of their hands. They covet fields and then seize them, and houses and take them away. They rob a man and his house, A man and his inheritance.” ~Micah 2:1-2

From Dr. Jim Beaty's Website

http://drjimbeaty.wordpress.com/

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