People who are homeless in the city huddle wherever they can: bus stop benches, sidewalks, overnight shelters, friends’ couches, under bridges. And, in Keith Taylor’s case, a self-storage unit meant for things rather than people.
The 42-year-old said for the last two or three months he secretly spent most nights sleeping in a 5-by-10-foot basement unit of an indoor self-storage center in northwest Atlanta. He paid the rent, he said, with some of the money he earned donating blood plasma up to twice a week.
Surviving homelessness for any meaningful length of time requires ingenuity.
The storage place where he stayed advertises climate-controlled units, with month-to-month terms and no credit card required. Taylor said his space had no electric outlets. For a bathroom, he used a bag or a jug. For a bed, he had blankets and a sleeping bag. He rigged the roll-up door’s lock to look like it was engaged when he was inside, hoping to avoid detection by management.
He wouldn’t hang around the unit during the day. At night, he said, “I’ve got to be extremely quiet. Thank God I don’t snore.”
But Taylor’s time behind the unit’s roll-up door, sleeping on a concrete floor, is over for now.
He left the space last week for much more comfortable digs in a former shipping container. He is among the first residents in the city of Atlanta’s new downtown development called The Melody, part of an ambitious broader effort to provide more housing faster for people who are homeless.
The Melody relies on metal shipping containers as housing, mostly supplied by the Georgia Emergency Management Agency, and is in a former parking lot downtown near the Garnett Street MARTA station.
The new compound, surrounded by a fence with a screen meant to look like a hedge, has the first 40 of 500 planned rapid housing units the city hopes to have in place in various locations by the end of 2025.
Occupants pay no rent for at least the first year, but eventually will be expected to pay 30% of whatever income they have.
All of the units are spoken for, though some people have yet to move in, according to Cathryn Vassell, the chief executive of Partners for Home, the city’s lead agency in the effort. To qualify, they must meet a federal definition for being chronically homeless, which includes having a long-term disabling condition and having lived in a place not meant for human habitation or in an emergency shelter for at least a year.
Most of the new residents were sleeping outside before coming to the development, Vassell wrote in an email.
Credit: Ben Gray
Credit: Ben Gray
On Wednesday, Episcopal priest Kim Jackson, visited The Melody to sprinkle holy water and bless the homes of nine of her parishioners who moved in recently. Jackson, who is also a state senator from Stone Mountain, leads an Atlanta-based church focused on members who are unhoused.
“This is the most people we have ever been able to get housed in the shortest period of time ever,” she said.
The most basic things carry remarkable importance. Jackson recalled how thrilled members called out to her. “Pastor Kim, Pastor Kim, look: I have a key!”
Some have mental health issues or grapple with addiction or intellectual disabilities, she said. At least one struggled to regain his financial footing after suffering a debilitating stroke.
Before, they lived anywhere they could, she said. Shelters. Outside on concrete that would make their body ache. Some got creative.
“I know a guy who was sleeping in a tree.” He lived in a grove a short walk from the state capitol, in a tent sitting on a platform in a tree where people weren’t likely to look up, she said.
Tracy Woodard, who works in homeless services at the nonprofit Intown Cares, saw Taylor at the storage unit while he was homeless, and knows of one other person who sheltered in a storage unit. An Atlanta Journal-Constitution reporter was present recently as Taylor prepared to give blood plasma for money at a local donation center.
In an email, Timothy Dietz, the chief executive of the Self Storage Association, a national industry trade group, wrote that, “Living in a self storage unit is actually against the law and breaks every lease that I know of. It’s an occasional problem, but I wouldn’t call it common.”
Taylor said to take showers, he’d visit a homeless shelter at times or sign up for free trial visits at local workout gyms. “I’m a neat freak.”
He said he grew up in military families, where discipline is expected. But he said he also faced trauma as a child, and he rattled off a list of mental health diagnoses he was given: ADHD, PTSD, bipolar, depression, intermittent explosive disorder, which can include sudden episodes of unwarranted anger.
Taylor said he has 10 felonies and spent much of his adult life homeless, on probation or behind bars. He is often in pain, and said he’s been involved in several accidents, including one on a scooter.
But he said he also has worked as a media production engineer and that he has a bachelor’s degree in fine arts, with post-graduate ambitions.
He worried about his safety while being homeless. At night in the self storage unit, he’d jam a screwdriver into the part of the door’s railing, to create a sort of lock from the inside.
Two other storage places he had stayed at earlier had kicked him out.
“I haven’t had a place in my own name my whole life,” he said.
Credit: Ben Gray
Credit: Ben Gray
He does now.
At The Melody, unlike being on the streets, he can fall asleep without having his possessions stolen. His unit takes up half a shipping container, an efficiency with compact space for a bed, a microwave, a tiny refrigerator/freezer, a TV, small cabinets for his belongings, a big window, and his own bathroom.
“This place is so freaking small, but it is free, and I can’t argue with free,” he said.
Editor’s note: An earlier version of this article described The Melody as transitional housing. Partners for Home says the units are permanent housing.
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