This past May, the Kairos Center came down to Georgia for the You Only Get What You’re Organized to Take book tour where we traveled to Augusta and Atlanta, meeting with leaders that were organizing with homeless folks, the disabled community, the movement to Stop Cop City, immigrants rights organizing, and more. The weekend was a powerful testimony to the courageous work that folks are doing across the state
I was particularly moved Saturday morning when we embarked on an Immigrant Justice Walking Pilgrimage with Anton Flores of Casa Alterna. We learned about the path and obstacles that migrants who come to the city have to face, and the work that Anton and others have done to help foster and develop their leadership to fight the evil, broken, and unjust immigration system that has harmed them.
With the help of Todd Cherkis from the United Workers, we also weaved together stories of the organizing of the 1990s Atlanta Homeless Union, which organizing before and during the 1996 Atlanta Olympics. The Olympics brought rapid development throughout the city, pushing out residents and closing down affordable housing units. On one stop of the tour, we stopped in front of the Atlanta City Detention Center, which the 1990s Homeless Union called “the first Olympic Project finished on time,” as the $56 million dollar jail was built to coincide with several controversial status ordinances that criminalized poverty and homelessness, like making it a crime to panhandle, inhabit a vacant building, or walk through a parking lot without owning a car in the lot. In the year prior to the Olympics, there was a four fold increase in arrests of homeless people. Because of this, the Union of the Homeless and Empty the Shelters organized CopWatch, modeled after the Black Panthers to monitor police harassment of the homeless.
In front of the jail, I thought of my work at the Church of the Common Ground, a street ministry located in the heart of downtown Atlanta. For two years during the winter months, we did our weekly Common Soles Foot Clinic inside Gateway Shelter, a men’s homeless shelter that sits directly next to the Atlanta City Detention Center. This is no accident. Week after week, while washing feet I would hear the stories of community members who wrestled with the brutality of poverty – addiction, homelessness, lack of concern and care from the city – and many of these individuals would cycle through the detention center right next door. Many times, the folks I talked to would be locked away for low-level offenses – panhandling or public camping – and these individuals were often elders, disabled, and veterans.
In 2026, the World Cup will be hosted in Atlanta. 30 years after the 1996 Olympics, the City of Atlanta is set to repeat its history, and the frontline responders of the community, like the Church of the Common Ground, are already preparing for the worst for their congregants and community members. There are whispers that Woodruff Park, the downtown park where homeless folks congregate, and where Common Ground has done Bible Study and Sunday service for years, will be closed for renovations preparing for the World Cup. With the passing of Grants Pass vs. Johnson, criminalizing poverty and homelessness has even more of a precedent to continue to criminalize and lock away homeless folks and poor folks.
My time in Atlanta was shaped by Common Ground, and I stayed at the Church even after dropping out of seminary. In retrospect, it was the greatest seminary education I could have asked for, as week after week I bore witness to testimonies of God’s love and resilience in the face of brutality and injustice. I was schooled on the Bible, the Church, and theology from the city’s leading Biblical experts – homeless folks who had read, prayed, and thought on the Bible more times than I could even hope for.
It was at Common Ground where I met leaders like Princess Diana, a trans woman who has been at the center of fighting for the dignity and rights of trans people, women, and homeless folks. A deeply spiritual, courageous, and connected trans woman on the move, she is a disciple of the people, with a deep understanding of what we are up against, and what our duty is as leaders and people of faith. For every Princess, there are many more courageous leaders already doing the work of God, and many who have yet to be found.
One of my favorite parts of the weekend also happened during our time outside of the Detention Center. While we were talking, a young person emerged from the doors, looked up at the sky and shouted, “I’M FREE!” Almost immediately, Anton, Steff and others broke out in song, singing, “Woke up this morning with my mind, stayed on freedom!” We danced together in what was a moment of pure joy and hope amidst real pain and suffering. It felt like a reminder from God – we were born to be free, and our work as organizers and people of faith is to fight for that freedom.
Photos by Steve Pavey, Hope In Focus