Local leaders, service providers, housing partners, and funders launched Atlanta Rising well before the tournament arrived. The effort has expanded housing and helped people move quickly from the streets into permanent homes.
Producer/editor/cinematographer: Alex Gasaway | / alexgasaway
Invisible People is a nonprofit that documents the realities of homelessness. It visited Atlanta to see that coordination in practice. The video was produced with Community Solutions, Partners for HOME, SafeHouse Outreach, Mend Culture, and Gateway Center.
Downtown Rising, part of Atlanta Rising, brings outreach teams, shelters, health care providers, and housing organizations together around one goal: helping people move from the streets into permanent housing as fast as possible. It set out to house 400 people living unsheltered in downtown Atlanta, hit that number, and kept going. More than 509 people have now moved from the streets into permanent housing through the initiative. The average time to get someone housed has dropped to 48 days, compared to a national average of 166 days.
The video follows Mr. Bean, a veteran who served in the U.S. Army during Desert Storm as a paratrooper and heavy wheeled vehicle mechanic, as he packs up his tent and unlocks the door to a home of his own. It also follows Tammy, who had been sleeping outside for years and was still on the street the night before she got her keys. With the right support and a place to live, people can rebuild their lives.
The World Cup will end soon, but the work in Atlanta won’t. It started before the tournament, and it will keep going after, driven by the same partners doing the work every day.
