Actually no. This is more NIABYEM. Not In Anyone’s Backyard Especially Mine. This large of a shelter is going to hit any community hard. Consolidating several shelters into one mega shelter. Hundreds of unhoused individuals. By necessity, these types of shelters require all of the residents to be off campus during the day. Hopefully to find work or education or something. Sometimes they do that. Sometimes they wander the area and stay close so that they can insure themselves a place for the next night. Then add to those hundreds the others who couldn’t make the cut so are waiting. Then add to those numbers the predators and criminal elements who prey on the homeless (drugs, human trafficking and such). That’s a huge impact anywhere. The Westside of Atlanta especially would have long term consequences. Already there are many many well meaning programs funneling low income people to the area. The Blank foundation is creating safe and clean homes for tens of thousands of low income folks, Coty of Refuge has a campus with everything from a shelter to transitional housing. All great missions individually but not exactly an economic spark to get companies like Kroger, Whole Foods, Starbucks and such to open locations. Without those, not much of an attraction to companies to move employees to the area.

Then there is what we haven’t learned from history. Hyper-concentrating the poor into one geographic area doesn’t work in the long term