Jan. 16 marked the first anniversary of Cornelius Taylor’s brutal death. Taylor was crushed by a front-loader in a callous and careless encampment sweep.
The Justice for Cornelius Taylor Coalition, his family, including his son, and other concerned community members marked the anniversary with a wreath laying, vigil and news conference at the site of his death, calling for a renaming of Old Wheat Street in his honor.
Encampment sweeps are cruel — end of story. They happen all the time, in every major city. Atlanta is not only no different from every other city in this regard, but it also has the dubious distinction of being one of the leaders in criminalizing homelessness.
In the cradle of the Civil Rights Movement, that is unacceptable.
And now, with the lamentable passage of Georgia House Bill 295, this inhumane treatment of our unsheltered brothers and sisters will likely only get worse. HB 295, in a nutshell, allows property owners to recoup financial losses because of “public nuisances.” This gives more incentive to cities like Atlanta to intensify encampment sweeps.
Taylor’s death was right before MLK Day march
The city of Atlanta not only persists in dismantling encampments, but it also pairs this cruel activity with a baffling refusal to create affordable housing and living wage opportunities (policies are choices, after all). A recent study, “Homelessness is a Housing Problem,” found that communities where housing was least affordable featured the highest rates of homelessness.
The city of Atlanta also refuses to create a robust safety net.
So, vulnerable people must fend for themselves, creating communities in tent cities. Living outside, they must contend with raging heat, bitter cold and other dangerous weather. There’s no easy access to toilets or showers.
But there’s community, and that’s important.
But then the city doubles down on its punitive practices by destroying these makeshift communities and providing few other alternative situations, such as safe housing.
The Old Wheat Street encampment sweep that killed Cornelius Taylor happened ahead of the Martin Luther King Jr. Day march. The city wanted to “sweep” the homeless out of view of parade participants, so it could preserve the illusion that civil rights work is done, and we can all celebrate MLK’s legacy in guilt-free fashion.
But it turns out, civil rights work is never done, and things are only getting worse.
The irony is a twisted one. An encampment sweep crushed someone to death in the city that birthed MLK and birthed the civil rights movement in the shadow of the church where he preached and galvanized generations to seek justice for everyone.
All so that we can pretend everything is fine.
MLK is likely spinning in his grave.
Credit: Miguel Martinez-Jimenez
Credit: Miguel Martinez-Jimenez
Encampment sweeps are not the right approach
Encampment sweeps are not only cruel, as established, but they are also ineffective. During the sweeps, people’s personal property is destroyed. Tents, sleeping bags, family history and personal identification documents, life-saving medications — gone. Crumpled up and discarded, like trash.
But these are not garbage items. These are people’s lives. As the ACLU says, people who are unhoused have the same rights as those with houses: “No matter what you call home, the Constitution applies to everybody.”
And encampment sweeps are deadly, as Cornelius Taylor’s death has tragically proved.
But sweeps are also completely counterproductive in solving homelessness. They don’t result in housing. Homelessness persists after sweeps. People are forced to move on, building community anew, out of nothing, as before.
As I drive the streets of Atlanta, I see abundant evidence that sweeps don’t work. Elderly and disabled people are forced to live in inhumane conditions outside while the city around them develops housing for the ultra-rich and hostile architecture for the rest of us.
As the World Cup approaches, these cruel and ineffective sweeps are getting only more pervasive, since it appears the mayor’s regressive “Atlanta Rising” policy is having its way. This policy shows that Atlanta has learned nothing since the Olympics — except maybe how to double down on cruelty.
Sure, Atlanta Rising claims to be a humane approach, but can we really trust an administration that continues to threaten arrest of those in encampments?
Furthermore, with the passing of the aforementioned HB 295, now it will be even easier for Atlanta to implement draconian measures to criminalize those without homes.
It is going to depend on all of us to heed the call of King and call to banish this benighted approach to homelessness.
We can demand an Atlanta for all, by advocating for the unhoused, and by calling for an end to the sweeps — and by calling for abundant social housing (like what existed before Ronald Reagan slashed funding for it) with wraparound services.
If you are outraged by the twin injustices of lack of affordable housing and criminalizing homelessness, the city needs to hear from you and your family, friends and neighbors, persistently, through emails, phone calls, protests, public comment.
Let’s bring justice to Cornelius Taylor by decriminalizing homelessness and creating housing for all.
Let’s reclaim Atlanta’s legacy as the leader in civil rights.
Alison Ross has been advocating for the homeless since she moved to Atlanta in the early 1990s.
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