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Hospitality to the Homeless ˜ 119
everything Ed Loring has said here today.” He described how foolish he felt as a
police officer having to arrest someone for what for every human being is a necessity.
He supported public toilets for the dignity of the poor and of police officers,
too.
A proposal, sponsored by council members John Lewis and Elaine Valentine,
was brought before the Atlanta City Council. There were several committee
meetings. Representatives of the downtown business district took notes on
the debate, and at each meeting we seemed to lose one more supporter on the
council. Lewis and Valentine persisted but lost the battle.
Finally, a compromise was struck. There would be one “experimental” toilet
(a PortaPotty) set in the old Plaza Park (now part of Underground Atlanta).
It was no victory, since the compromise was clearly designed to fail. One toilet
where thousands of people passed everyday! Sure enough, the toilet had been removed
within a few months. It had been used so heavily that the company that
owned it could not clean it fast enough.
Over the years there have been many conversations, many letters and articles,
many meetings, and many direct actions. In the time that has passed, hundreds
of thousands of dollars have been squandered jailing people for this “offense,”
when a fraction of those resources could have put toilets all over the city.
In December 1983, we held a twenty-four-hour fast and vigil in front of City
Hall, calling on then-Mayor Andrew Young and the city council to take leadership
in providing public toilets. In 1984, we specifically took on the city’s daylabor
center on Edgewood Avenue. The center had been one of the few places
where, at least during business hours, homeless people had access to a bathroom.
In 1983, federal funds had been allocated to renovate the center and to repair and
improve the bathrooms. By June 1985, the toilets in the center had been dysfunctional
for many months, and there still was no movement toward renovations.
No one in City Hall could explain why the federal funds sat in a bank account
while the toilets backed up. Our political organization, the Atlanta
Advocates for the Homeless, had written countless letters, gone to endless meetings,
and made zillions of phone calls, but nothing happened. Those among the
Advocates who had insisted on “working through the system” reached their limits
along with the rest of us. We found a toilet and carried it into the mayor’s office,
where Ed Loring sat on it and read scripture (rather loudly). The rest of us
sang and chanted. Before the end of the day, Ed, Will Coleman (now a writer
and professor of theology), and Dick Stewart, a retired Wycliffe Bible translator,
had been arrested and carted to jail, and a contract for the renovations had been
signed (pure coincidence, according to the mayor’s staff!). At the hearing in municipal
court the next day, Judge Barbara Harris interrupted the police account
of our actions to lean over the bench and ask, “Reverend Loring, do you usually
take a toilet along when you make business calls” Ed answered quickly, “Oh, yes
ma’am!”