Framing Atlanta's Movement to End Homelessness, 1900-2005
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Georgia State University ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University Sociology Dissertations Department of Sociology 12-2009 Who is my Neighbor?: Framing Atlanta's Movement to End Homelessness, 1900-2005 William Wyatt Holland Georgia State University Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.gsu.edu/sociology_diss Part of the Sociology Commons Recommended Citation Holland, William Wyatt, "Who is my Neighbor?: Framing Atlanta's Movement to End Homelessness, 1900-2005." Dissertation, Georgia State University, 2009. https://scholarworks.gsu.edu/sociology_diss/43 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Department of Sociology at ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University. It has been accepted for inclusion in Sociology Dissertations by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University. For more information, please contact [email protected]. WHO IS MY NEIGHBOR?: FRAMING ATLANTA’S MOVEMENT TO END HOMELESSNESS, 1900 – 2005 by WILLIAM WYATT HOLLAND Under the Direction of Charles Jaret ABSTRACT This study examines framing strategies employed by the social movement responding to homelessness in Atlanta, Georgia over the course of the 20th century. Drawing on archival records, media accounts and interviews with religious, business and government leaders, this longitudinal case study documents the varied casts of individuals and groups responding to the visible poor on the streets of the city. At the forefront of this project were religious groups serving variously as agents of social control or prophets calling for justice. Social movement framing theory, supplemented by resource mobilization and political opportunity theories, are applied to analyze movement processes. Framing theory provides an explanation for the coordination of collective action in social movements. However, the processes by which movements develop, contest and subsequently transform frames have received little scholarly attention and remain central questions for framing theory. This study addresses these questions. Analytically, I consider the movement in two waves: 1) an early movement dating from 1900 to 1970 and, 2) a modern movement covering the years from 1975 to 2005. In each period movement leaders adopted diagnostic, prognostic and motivational frames to organize and direct their actions. In the first wave, the Salvation Army and Union Mission drew on frames of sin and redemption to develop specialized, separate institutions and programs for the visible poor. The second wave of the movement developed its framing by incorporating elements from the civil rights movement, liberation theology and the Catholic Worker traditions. Religious leaders developed a church based, volunteer run shelter system providing free emergency night shelter to homeless persons. Freezing deaths on the streets of the city in 1981 led to rapid diffusion of church-based sheltering and adoption of a crisis/disaster frame. Central to these developments was a core group of religious leaders bringing a variety of personal experiences and visions to sheltering. The experience of sheltering and the confrontations with downtown business and political leaders fostered the development of frames with greater complexity and highlighted internal contradictions in the movement. New frames explaining homelessness variously emphasized either structural (injustice) or individual (disability) factors leading to framing conflicts within the movement. INDEX WORDS: Social movements, Homelessness, Religion, Atlanta, Framing theory, Public space, Poverty, Shelters. WHO IS MY NEIGHBOR?: FRAMING ATLANTA’S MOVEMENT TO END HOMELESSNESS, 1900 – 2005 by WILLIAM WYATT HOLLAND A Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the College of Arts and Sciences Georgia State University 2009 Copyright by William Wyatt Holland 2009 WHO IS MY NEIGHBOR?: FRAMING ATLANTA’S MOVEMENT TO END HOMELESSNESS, 1900 – 2005 by WILLIAM WYATT HOLLAND Committee Chair: Charles Jaret Committee: Wendy Simonds Robert Adelman Electronic Version Approved: Office of Graduate Studies College of Arts and Sciences Georgia State University December 2009 iv DEDICATION I dedicate this study to Mary Ann Downey, my faithful and supportive partner. I also dedicate this to my parents, Rev. Harvey C. Holland and Rev. Miriam H. Holland who inspired in me a commitment to social justice and a love of learning. v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I want to extend my deep thanks to Dr. Charles Jaret. His great patience and quiet confidence in my ability to complete this project has made this document possible. He along with Dr. Robert Adelman and Dr. Wendy Simonds provided hopeful encouragement as I worked through the thicket of historical research. Thanks also to the Georgia State University Department of Sociology for its wonderful collegial atmosphere. The Department’s support and encouragement of graduate student research is exceptional. The depth of my research would not have been possible without the access that the Open Door Community provided me, particularly, Rev. Eduard Loring and Rev. Murphy Davis. They provided me access to records and letters that gave me an intimate understanding of the early movement I had only known through oral history. My gratitude and appreciation for their committed lives of activism is overwhelming. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS.......................................................................................................v LIST OF TABLES................................................................................................................... ix 1: INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY....................................................................................1 PURPOSE AND STUDY SITE ......................................................................................4 RESEARCH QUESTIONS AND METHOD................................................................12 OUTLINE OF CHAPTERS...........................................................................................14 2: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND.....................................................................................16 WHAT ARE SOCIAL MOVEMENTS?: A METHODOLOGICAL APPROACH .....16 PERSPECTIVES ON SOCIAL MOVEMENT: AN OVERVIEW...............................20 CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................45 3: ATLANTA’S RESPONSES TO HOMELESSNESS 1880-1975 .......................................46 ATLANTA’S POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC CONTEXT........................................47 RESCUE THE PERISHING:1880-1929 .......................................................................52 HOMELESSNESS IN THE GREAT DEPRESSION 1929-1942.................................76 POST WORLD WAR II ATLANTA RESPONDS TO HOMELESSNESS ................91 4: BEGINNING THE MODERN MOVEMENT 1979-1982................................................104 PROVIDING HOSPITALITY: CLIFTON PRESBYTERIAN...................................106 DISASTER RESPONSE: CENTRAL PRESBYTERIAN NIGHT SHELTER ..........115 5: WHERE FRAMES COME FROM: ..................................................................................129 EVANGELICAL RESPONSES TO HOMELESSNESS............................................130 BUSINESS COMMUNITY FRAMING – CAPITOL OF THE NEW SOUTH.........142 MODERN MOVEMENT LEADERS DEVELOP A FRAME ...................................149 6: THE IDEA OF A TASK FORCE......................................................................................165 BOLLING - TASK FORCE FOR THE HOMELESS (AND HUNGRY) ..................168 THE BEVIS DRAFT – STREET PEOPLE STRATEGY...........................................172 THE FINAL DRAFT, THE CIVIC RENEWAL MODEL .........................................176 FORMING A TASK FORCE: AN UNDERWHELMING RESPONSE....................180 vii 7: THE 1983 TOILET CAMPAIGN: EXTENSION AND ELABORATION......................188 FRAMING PUBLIC TOILETS...................................................................................189 HOMELESSNESS AND LEGAL RIGHTS ...............................................................194 FRAME EXTENSION ................................................................................................196 PUBLIC DEBATE.......................................................................................................200 INTERPRETING FAILURE.......................................................................................206 8: RISE AND FALL OF DISASTER FRAME .....................................................................211 BUILDING THE RELIGIOUS SHELTERING NETWORK.....................................211 NEW RESOURCES, NEW ACTORS (1983-1984) ...................................................217 1984 RESEARCH ATLANTA – IMPACT OF HOMELESSNESS ON ATLANTA221 ARTICULATING THE INJUSTICE FRAME ...........................................................225 SUBCONTRACTING THE CITY’S RESPONSE: THE EOA DEBACLE...............231 CRITIQUE OF LARGE SHELTERS..........................................................................235 9: BATTLE FOR PUBLIC SPACE AND POLICY .............................................................247 DISLOCATION AND NEIGHBORHOOD RESISTANCE: MARCH 1985.............247 SAFEGUARD ZONE: THE QUEST FOR PSYCHOLOGICAL DOMINATION....255 RESISTING THE SAFEGUARD ZONE AND EXCLUSION ..................................260 10: HOW FRAMES CHANGE: “WE CAN DO BETTER”.................................................269