By Gretchen Keiser

A Houston, Texas initiative on behalf of the homeless is being tried in the archdiocese of Atlanta, and the wider metropolitan Atlanta interfaith community.

For several years, the Houston religious community has assigned one weekend as a time to focus on the homeless and also to sponsor a collection to be used for local shelters, housing initiatives, preventive programs and education on the topic. Their second collection raised $1.2 million last year for Houston’s homeless programs.

This year, the metropolitan Atlanta religious community – Christian, Jewish and Muslim – is trying the same approach, both to raise consciousness among its congregations and to aid the many church-sponsored initiatives in metropolitan counties already being undertaken for the homeless, and, perhaps, to fund a few more.

The archdiocese of Atlanta is an active participant in this precedent setting endeavor, which is being called the “Community Appeal To Address Homelessness.”

Archbishop Eugene A. Marino, SSJ, is one of 14 co-chairs of the appeal, along with the Episcopal bishop of Atlanta, Methodist, African Methodist, Episcopal and Lutheran bishops, and representatives of Georgia Baptist Convention, the Presbyterian Church, the Jewish community, the Greek Orthodox, United Church of Christ, Assemblies of God and Church of God.

Steering committee members include Father John Adamski, Father Henry Gracz and Father Richard Kieran, and Catholic Social Services executive director Steve Brazen.

In the archdiocese, the first weekend in February, Feb. 3 and 4, is the time when the topics of homelessness is to be addressed and the collection to be taken.

Funds raised in parishes will be given to the Community Appeal, as will collections raised in other participating houses of worship. An allocations subcommittee, which includes Father Adamski, pastor of the Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, will recommend how the funds should be allocated and funds will be used for local projects to help the homeless, hence 100 percent of administrative expenses is being covered by the United Way. The funds are to be distributed in April.

Father Adamski, whose parish hosts the only Catholic night shelter in the archdiocese, said he hopes the appeal will be “a consciousness-raising issue” about the severe needs of the homeless and the faith imperative to reach out to them.

“It is an opportunity for the faith community to be recognized as reaching out to our sisters and brothers who live in our communities without homes. We have a responsibility to them. Our responsibility to them grows out of our faith. It is a chance to come together with other churches and make that statement.”

The Reverend Charles Bennison, Jr., rector of St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in Atlanta, also worried that public concern about homelessness is waning, perhaps because it is no longer a new topic, but a familiar, even discouraging one.

“People, I think, have lost interest,” said the rector, whose church sponsors a five-day-a-week soup kitchen, a health clinic and job placement service for the homeless and a mail drop-off.

“If you don’t have a house, you don’t have an address. You can’t get mail. You can’t get a job. The whole system falls apart for you,” the rector said.

The homeless population in metropolitan Atlanta in 1989 is estimated to be as high as 12,000 with 70 shelters providing only 3,500 bed spaces. Statistics supplied by the Community Appeal say that 40 percent of the metropolitan area’s homeless are employed; 38 percent are families with children. State figures estimate that 66 percent of the homeless in Georgia are men, and nearly half of the men are Vietnam War veterans.

Suburban counties with significant homeless populations include Clayton County with an estimated 1,200 homeless, Cobb County with an estimated 2,000 homeless, and Gwinnett County with an estimated 3,000 homeless. At least 750 homeless sought shelter in Douglas County in 1989, the statistics say. In the same time period, 60 women and children were sheltered in Rockdale County and others were turned away for lack of space.

“The need is not going away, it is getting worse,” Steve Brazen said. “The appeal is to raise consciousness on this issue with the feeling that it will take a real concerted effort on the part of the community rather than a little bit here and a little bit there.”

Bennison noted that health care, emergency shelters, and more starts of low-cost housing are desperate needs. If the appeal succeeds this year, it will be attempted again next year, he said.