Godsta

COMMENTARY: Atlanta Home of the Braves Land of the Forgotten

Like most metropolitan cities, Atlanta's jails are overcrowded, but unlike a lot of other cities there are no effective reentry programs available to ease the transition from jail to community, nor are there very many preventive programs to catch them before they enter the system. Those of us within the faith-based and community-based service providers struggle with finding funding to deal with the ever increasing numbers of individuals who fall through the cracks in the floor of opportunity. Daily all around the city community activists are gathering to discuss ways to combat the problem, while on the other end of the spectrum businessmen are discussing ways to achieve economic progress and ignore the problems of this under-served class.

In reality a city has to make great progressive strides to compete in this global marketplace, but what about the people! It is a testament to the great visionaries of progress for the city of Atlanta to thrive as it has and will do. However, I think that an even greater testimony to these visionaries would be how we care for the homeless and dispossessed. This city boast over thirty years of successful events such as the jazz festival, arts festivals’, mayors balls and gay pride parades and such , but we have no legacy as of yet on how we celebrate the success of helping the helpless, hopeless, and homeless. We have one of the greatest trauma units in this region of the country (Grady Hospital), going under for lack of funding. But what the heck, it’s only a hospital that helps the poor; we all know that the arts are more important. Whoopee doo that Coco-Cola has a new home across from Centennial Park worth millions just to show off its trivia. Wouldn’t it be nice if the homeless had a few new shelters worth millions? The choice of trivia and a good looking train station over healthy communities seems like a poor choice to me, what you think... F. Lee