UPDATE: City rejects shelter’s water payment offer, reveals plan to move homeless to other facilities

• Max Blau

The city is rejecting the Metro Atlanta Task Force for the Homeless’ last-ditch plan to pay off its sky-high water bill and keep the taps running at the massive shelter the nonprofit operates at the corner of Peachtree and Pine streets.

Instead, City Hall wants the Task Force to pay nearly $600,000 it owes in full. Failure to do so by Monday would result in the city moving ahead with a plan to turn off the shelter’s water.

In late August, Atlanta’s Department of Watershed Management wrote a letter to roughly 300 delinquent businesses and nonprofits who owe the city more than $6 million in water bills. The message was simple: Pay your bill within 30 days or we’ll shut off your water.

Earlier this morning, Task Force Executive Director Anita Beaty attempted to pay $100,000 of that outstanding debt to the city. She walked into Two City Plaza, home of the city’s watershed management department, in hopes that city officials would accept six-figure cashier’s check as the first step toward paying down the shelter’s exorbitant water bills.

But city officials refused the olive branch. They’re instead demanding full payment of not just $433,000 — an amount they’ve requested for the past month — but also an estimated $147,000 for a federal court judgment on a separate account, plus interest. That’s an estimated $580,000 that Chief Operating Office Michael Geisler wants paid before Monday.

“The City of Atlanta recognizes the critical importance of homeless service organizations in our community,” Geisler said on Friday evening in a letter to Beaty. “However, that mission does not grant you or anyone the right to disregard your legal and financial obligations. … We can no longer allow this situation to continue when there are many other homeless service providers and non-profits that pay their water bills on time every month.”

In the letter, Geisler shed some light on what would happen if the city terminated water service to the shelter. He told Beaty that the city has formally asked the United Way of Greater Atlanta, the Regional Commission on the Homelessness, and other organizations to “marshal our collective resources” to guarantee that men, women, and children can have access to a “safer facility with the respect, dignity and hope for eventual self-sufficiency they deserve.”

Citing concerns about recent tuberculosis outbreaks and nearby crime, Geisler writes that the city will open a new 150-bed shelter for homeless women and children. The city intends to find replacement emergency shelter and permanent housing solutions for the men staying at Peachtree-Pine shelter. The city is also willing to delay shutting off the water by seven to 10 days if the Task Force provides officials with assistance in helping men, women, and children transition from the Downtown building to different shelters and housing that the city is setting up.

Protip Biswas, the vice president of the United Way’s Regional Commission on Homelessness, recently confirmed with CL that it’s talking with city officials about how to transition homeless men out of Peachtree-Pine if it loses access to water. He says a larger collaborative effort would require the pooling of available resources in the short-term, and eventually “well-run facilities where people are getting services and getting out of homelessness” down the road.

“This issue with Peachtree-Pine is not new,” Biswas says. “The city has asked for our help. ... A sudden closure requires a community effort. What we’re doing now is looking at all possibilities, looking at the capacity of all our shelters. We’re asking the city and Fulton County to look at any closed facilities it may have. We’re asking them for all of the facilities that are available. There are other homeless service providers who may also have extra beds or might have vacancies.”

Beaty called the letter “absolutely appalling” and without justification from “destructive greedy folks” at City Hall. Given the disarray of the city’s watershed management department, which is reportedly missing hundreds of thousands of dollars in equipment, she was baffled that officials wouldn’t accept her six-figure check today.

“We don’t believe anything they say,” Beaty says. “We don’t believe that for a minute. The city can’t close us down. Only the county can close us down. We are an overflow facility. The other facilities can’t absorb what we do. If they’ve had this capacity and held onto it, then it’s outrageous. It’s a setup. What a sad day in this city to use the homeless.”

Beaty says the Task Force does not intend to cooperate without any kind of transitional effort.

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Over the past two days, the city and the shelter operator, which have jousted in courtrooms over the past few years over various issues, have had at least two contentious meetings over the unpaid bill. Beaty and Task Force lawyer Steven Hall yesterday sat down with DWM Commissioner Jo Ann Macrina and her staff to discuss a possible payment for the nonprofit’s water bills. Macrina and other city officials rejected the initial $100,000 offer followed with a regular payment plan and declined to make a counter proposal. Both sides described the meeting’s tone in a single word: hostile.

Hall yesterday sent Macrina a formal offer letter around 4:30 p.m., before Beaty unsuccessfully tried to deliver the six-figure check this morning.

“No creditor in their right mind does not take $100,000 — or 25 percent — of an outstanding bill with no strings attached,” Hall tells CL. “Why wouldn’t you take that from anyone, no matter what their past history was? We’re prepared to commit going forward to always paying on time for new charges and sit down in good faith to negotiate with them a way to pay the back charges.”

Mayor Kasim Reed Spokesman Melissa Mullinax tells CL that the city never intended to accept the partial payment offer. She added that the pressure from Task Force leadership to demand an answer following their formal offer in writing on Thursday afternoon was largely unnecessary, especially considering that Beaty hasn’t paid water bill to the city since 2010.

“It’s just a stunt,” Mullinax says. “The water’s not being turned off immediately on Monday. That’s the day Watershed officials will begin going out. I don’t know when they’ll get to that one if we don’t work something out with the Task Force. They’re creating an emergency today for the press.”

Tensions boiled between the Task Force leadership and Mullinax inside the lobby of the city’s attorney’s office earlier this afternoon. Beaty and Hall, who were told by a Two City Plaza receptionist that payments needed to be made at City Hall, tried explaining their plight to the mayor’s spokeswoman. But Mullinax denied Beaty and Hall’s request to set up a payment plan prior to the city’s counteroffer. Hall subsequently accused city officials of intentionally trying to “to stall this for as long as possible.”

“I told you what we’re going to do, which is respond to your letter in writing,” Mullinax replied. “You’re welcome to sit here. You’re welcome to go to the mayor’s lobby and sit there. But we’re not having anymore conversation outside of this response.”

The conversation quickly devolved into both sides talking over each other before it abruptly ended. As Mullinax left the meeting, Beaty accused Reed’s spokeswoman of “slander” in a recent CL article about a “major Tuberculosis outbreak” occurring at Peachtree-Pine homeless shelter. (Mullinax later pointed to a CL article published in May 2014 about the reported outbreak.)

On City Hall’s steps a few minutes later, Hall again criticized the city for delaying a counteroffer. He said the Reed administration’s tactic ultimately would hinder the Task Force’s efforts to find adequate donors to help settle its water bills. Beaty said the city has a moral obligation to recognize the Task Force’s efforts in offering care to hundreds of homeless men, women, and children who are reliant on the water.

“I am just confounded,” Hall says. “We’ve been walking around all day with a $100,000 check to give somebody. We can’t even get anyone to talk to us about it. It’s surprising.”

When asked if he believed the city is targeting the Task Force, Hall replied: “They make it difficult for me to come to any other conclusion.” Mullinax denied claims that the city was attempting to oust the Task Force from the building at Peachtree and Pine streets.

If the water gets shut off, Beaty vows that the Task Force will continue operating the shelter. In addition to attempting legal action, Hall says the Task Force might need to purchase private water, which would cost the shelter more money and reduce the effectiveness of its services. Or it could find an alternate source.

Note: This story has been updated to include new developments.