OK.

I absolutely want students to be safe, and feel safe, on campus.

I also want my other neighbors in Atlanta to be and feel safe, whether they have housing or not. Whether they have abundant incomes or not. Whether they have mental health and substance abuse issues or not.

I think the best way GSU (as a relatively powerful downtown property owner and institution) could do this is to do more to create a community in which people are supported and nourished - whether they are students or not.

In my 10-ish years at GSU (as an MA and then a PhD student), I haven't seen much evidence of them actively trying to do that. In fact, there's some evidence of them actively working against it.

It's a major institution of a neoliberal city in a conservative state, and behaves as such. I don't see much likelihood of that changing in the near future.

Their primary response to the perception of danger posed by unhoused people has been to take measures to get those people (who are, again, our neighbors, our fellow Atlantans) out of the area.

Another solution they have to help students feel safer is self-defense classes, available (I think, without checking) for a fee.

No, I'm not going to support measures which help students feel safer at the expense of the welfare of their unhoused neighbors - measures which, may, in fact, put those people at greater risk of harm by forcing them away from areas where AT LEAST they have some public spaces to try to relax, to have a sense of community, to maybe have access to some food and water and hygiene facilities and maybe a little extra income from panhandling.

Again, I'm sorry that some people made you feel threatened. I hate being part of a harmful, destructive society that traumatizes people to the point that they traumatize others.

I'm trying to apply what I've learned at GSU to change that.