As the temperature dropped to around 35 degrees last Wednesday night, Yered Israel wasn’t sure where he’d be sleeping — or whether he’d sleep at all.
The 36-year-old, self-identified unhoused man was sitting in the entryway of a Georgia State University garage with his belongings around 9 p.m. last week when he was approached by homeless aid advocates offering Kroger gift cards to him and others before interviewing them.
Israel wasn’t far from a small tent city in a downtown area nonprofit volunteers referred to as “the dungeon,” located under a bridge along Wall Street near Kimball Way.
Multiple tents and shopping carts filled with people’s possessions lined the underground throughway adjacent to a fenced-in parking garage and a few parking lots. Several large rats darted across the concrete from a nearby overflowing dumpster.
“I got some good sleep in at a warming shelter yesterday, the day before,” Israel said last Wednesday. “I’m supposing tonight is a lot warmer than it was yesterday, and it’s as well as the night before. So, yeah, I’m glad it’s as warm as it is.”
Capital B Atlanta interviewed Israel and several other unhoused Atlanta residents while reporting on the latest Point In Time homeless census count.
The annual tally and survey of the region’s unhoused population is done every year in January to assess how many people are living on the streets, in homeless shelters, or in extended-stay hotels while examining trends and patterns.
One constant reality is the homeless population’s huge racial disparity. The city’s overall population is about 46% Black, but its homeless population was about 80% Black last year.
Atlanta’s PIT count is led by Partners for HOME along with other nonprofit members of the city’s Continuum of Care network. Partners for HOME reports its data back to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development so leaders there can assess where and how much federal aid for the unhoused to distribute in local communities across the country.
Data and conclusions from the latest PIT count won’t be available until later this year.
Mastrianni Marshall, 41, said he suffers from mental health issues and has been living on the streets off and on for about six months. His latest stint came after being released from Clayton County Jail. He recalled getting his commercial driver’s license more than 15 years ago and said he aspires to be a truck driver again one day.
“You get caught up with the elements and society,” Marshall said. “It’s not just drugs and mental health. It’s a whole lot of stuff. … It’s a lot of violence and it’s a lot of danger. But [there are] good people [that] come out here. … If I walk around long enough, I’ll get something to eat.”
(Chauncey Alcorn/Capital B)
Metro Atlanta’s homeless population has been on the rise for the past three years. Some city leaders and aid advocates took solace in the relatively small 1% increase in the homeless population last year. The preceding two PIT counts showed a 7% year-over-year rise in 2024 and a 33% surge in 2023.
The problem motivated the Atlanta City Council to set aside $60 million in 2024 to combat homelessness at the behest of Mayor Andre Dickens. The slowdown in last year’s homelessness increase was due in part to Dickens’ and Partners for HOME’s Atlanta Rising Initiative and Downtown Rising plan, which set a goal to house 400 individuals experiencing homelessness in the heart of the city by the end of 2025.
As of Nov. 20, the program has housed 219 people, according to Axios.
Mercy Care volunteer Eurana Garcia, who has participated in the PIT count for more than six years, said she believes the city’s homeless population is still growing, largely fueled by the rising cost of living and weakening social safety net programs.
Many struggling families have turned to extended-stay hotels for housing because they can pay rent weekly, but they end up spending more money over time, according to a recent Georgia State University study.
“We’re having more persons experiencing homelessness, less resources,” Garcia said. “You can be a person who’s one paycheck from losing their job, then losing their insurance, and then having medical bills, and the next thing you know, them and their children are either living in a hotel … or they’re on the street.”
Disproportionate rates of poverty in Atlanta are one of the reasons Black locals make up the overwhelming majority of the city’s unhoused population every year, according to Partners for HOME CEO Cathryn Vassell, a phenomenon she referred to as being “network impoverished.”
“If I were to fall on hard times, I would have a mother, a father, a brother, an aunt, uncle, a cousin, who might have resources that I could rely on and depend on to help me get back on my feet,” Vassell told Capital B Atlanta on Wednesday. “The reality for people who are coming into the homeless system is that their [networks’] resources are equally, if not more, tapped than their own. Their network is impoverished and struggling as well.”
Vassell and others say the lack of affordable housing units for low-income Atlanta residents and higher rent prices are driving the city’s rise in homelessness, but Willie Thomas, 64, doesn’t like to make excuses for himself or his fellow unhoused neighbors.
The wheelchair-bound New York native said he moved to Atlanta more than 30 years ago and has been intermittently homeless much of his time since then. He said he’s been living on the streets for the past six months or so and is waiting to get approved for disability to help him get back on his feet.
Thomas said policymakers who want to reduce the homeless population should focus on getting people into programs early because it’s easy for many to get used to not having to pay rent and other bills.
“Until you’re sick and tired of how you livin’, you ain’t gonna change it,” he said.
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