{"id":986,"date":"2010-03-08T18:03:11","date_gmt":"2010-03-08T18:03:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/voteforjoe.com\/wheresjoe\/?p=424"},"modified":"2010-03-08T18:03:11","modified_gmt":"2010-03-08T18:03:11","slug":"the-streets-of-atlanta","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/?p=986","title":{"rendered":"the streets of Atlanta"},"content":{"rendered":"

We have come to the Open Door Community near the heart of urban Atlanta, Georgia, to look at poverty issues. \u00a0 The Open Door is a Catholic Worker Community that takes in the homeless and also provides regular meals and showers for those on the streets. \u00a0 (In a week, they may serve up to 1,000 people). \u00a0 During the course of the day, I talked to a number of “guests” staying at the Open Door. \u00a0 One of the people I talked to was Ralph (not his real name), who has been living at the Open Door for several years. \u00a0 He had been on the streets prior to that. \u00a0 Ralph grew up in Florida and got a high school degree. \u00a0 However, he wasn’t able to afford college and started working at an uncle’s small farm about 10 miles outside of Gainesville. \u00a0 He worked there several years, but the small farm went under — as more and more corporate mega-farms squeezed the small farmer out. \u00a0 Ralph heard there was work in Atlanta and took a bus here. \u00a0 He got some short term, low-paying jobs out of temporary services. \u00a0 Then had several fast food restaurant jobs. \u00a0 But just could never get ahead because of the cost of living here, he said. \u00a0 Ralph went from staying in small rooms in boarding houses to the desperation of the streets. \u00a0 He started coming to the Open Door for meals and when a room opened up here, he took it. \u00a0 He’s been at the Open Door several years now, working the meals for his brothers and sisters on the streets and doing various jobs around the house. \u00a0 Note:<\/strong> Ralph, who was totally content living off the land at his uncle’s small farm, is just one of many who have been displaced by the tremendous greed that drives corporate farming in America… \u00a0 Later while talking with a staff member of the Open Door, I learned downtown Atlanta has a “Tourist Triangle.” \u00a0 And a series of city ordinances have been enacted to keep as many homeless people out of this area as possible.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We have come to the Open Door Community near the heart of urban Atlanta, Georgia, to look at poverty issues. \u00a0 The Open Door is a Catholic Worker Community that takes in the homeless and also provides regular meals and …<\/span> Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-986","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/986","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=986"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/986\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=986"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=986"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=986"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}