When Tony Shelley moved from the tiny town of Jasper in the North Georgia mountains to the heart of Midtown Atlanta almost two years ago, he thought he was coming somewhere he could live more freely as a gay man. Instead, he said he’s often too timid to leave his home for fear of being verbally assaulted as a “queer and faggot” by the homeless in Midtown.
“He came at me and punched me in the face, and that’s where I got the black eye,” Shelley told members of the MPSA, a neighborhood security group.
Caribou employees and customers encounter “numerous issues on a daily basis” with harassment from the homeless, Scott said. In addition to witnessing Shelley’s “fist fight,” Scott said he’s seen homeless people toss Caribou’s patio furniture into the street, and had a homeless man chase him around with a four-foot pipe. He’s also seen potential customers avoid coming to Caribou for fear of being berated for money.
Emergency dispatchers generally give a low priority to complaints about the homeless, said Lt. Trudy Boyce, coordinator of APD’s “Project HOPE,” which links Atlanta’s homeless with mental health and addiction services.
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