For many years the city of Atlanta [including the Atlanta Police Department and multiple organizations funded by the city] have been sweeping the housing crisis under the rug. Rather than providing adequate housing for its unhoused residents, the city has sanctioned their continual displacement while offering no support or pathway to stability.

The #SolutionsNotSweepsATL campaign was started by housed and unhoused Atlantans that are appalled by the city’s treatment of vulnerable people. Many of the people impacted by city sanctioned sweeps are elderly and disabled and have no means to continue bouncing from place to place, which is why we have come together to put a stop to the sweeps and demand actual SOLUTIONS. 

A homeless sweep or “clean-up” is the forced disbanding of homeless encampments on public property and the removal of both homeless individuals and their property from that area. Over the decades research has repeatedly been shown sweeps accomplish nothing and, in fact, make the houseless and crime crises among American cities WORSE.