By Paula Day

She had seen their shadows in doorways. She had tutored them in shelters. Coming to work one morning she almost ran over one of them lying near the driveway.

Gradually Sister Carol Schlicksup, CSJ, became more and more aware of the homeless, once nameless and faceless around her.

She and another Sister of St. Joseph of Carondelet, Sister JoAnn Geary, were among eight members of the People for Urban Justice (PUJ) who on June 18 occupied the 80-year-old Imperial Hotel in downtown Atlanta claiming it for the homeless. On July 2, after extensive negotiations, the city promised to build housing for the homeless by 1994.

The occupation was intended to shake the Atlanta business community into awareness of the increasingly critical issue of homelessness in the city. A sign posted by PUJ outside the condemned building tells passersby that $142 million is being spent on Underground Atlanta. Plans are to spend $210 million on a domed stadium, $5 million to host the Super Bowl and $1 billion to host the Olympics. It questions what is being spent on the homeless.

For Sister Schlicksup, 44, the action was another level in her deepening commitment to the poor. As a teacher and principal, she had been part of the Catholic school system for 20 years. Her last teaching assignment took her to an inner city school where she had books and equipment for a class of 25 but only 12 students. Enrollment had dropped because tuition had risen, she said.

"I came to realize there were new needs. The institution of Catholic schools was not serving the needs of the poor, the needs of the homeless." Last August Sister Schlicksup became a resident volunteer with the Open Door Community on Ponce de Leon Avenue. The Community, founded by Rev. Ed Loring and his wife, Murphy Davis, ministers to the homeless.

The plight of the homeless poor is particularly acute, the women Religious point out.

"Without an address, a telephone, a place to clean up, it's very hard to go out and get a job," Sister Geary explained. In her work as a family nurse practitioner for Atlanta Community Health Program for the Homeless, Sister Geary, 47, observes this dilemma firsthand.

The children in a homeless situation suffer because they are shuffled from school to school. Sister Schlicksup recalls tutoring a nine-year-old who had been placed by her skill level in a kindergarten.

"Imagine how devastating that is -- to be nine and put with five-year-olds. She was uneducated but very bright."

"To have one's own space and one's own place is the beginning of empowerment," the Religious added. Of course, she admitted, there are those who are threatened by the empowerment of others, fearing it will mean some kind of loss for themselves.

People for Urban Justice is a group of clergy, professional, and formerly homeless persons interested in actively working in the social and political arena to improve permanently the condition of the homeless in Atlanta. It is a direct outgrowth of the Open Door Community's concern for the homeless.

In a statement issued when PUJ occupied the hotel, the group criticized the city and business leaders, including the owner of the building, the Portman Companies, for failing to respond to the needs of homeless people.

"The empty shell of the Imperial is visual testimony to his (John Portman's) and the business community's indifference to the critical shortage of affordable housing for the homeless and the poor," the statement read. "This indifference is shared by a city government that has been more intent on promoting Atlanta's national and international image..."

In 1989, 47,111 unduplicated individuals were housed in shelters in the Atlanta metropolitan area, according to Anita Beaty, director of the Atlanta Task Force for the Homeless. While no one was counting in 1980, she estimates the number of homeless then was fewer than 1,000.

In addition to the drastic increase in numbers, the population profile has also changed dramatically. A decade ago, 99.9 percent were older, substance-addicted males, Ms. Beaty pointed out. Today the average age is under 35. Sixty-three percent of any group of 1,000 persons housed in night shelters during a month are now part of a family group; 30 percent of that 1,000 are children.

While the number of homeless has increased, Atlanta has lost an estimated 2,000 single room occupancy residences, according to Ms. Beaty.

And so the objective of the occupation, according to Sister Geary was "to say we've had enough. With 12,000 people on the streets we don't need any more shelters. We need permanent, affordable housing."

PUJ selected the Imperial Hotel because of its highly visible location at the intersection of Peachtree Center, Peachtree Street and Ralph McGill Boulevard and because at one time it was a single room occupancy (SRO) residence. Its loss as an SRO "displaced people, literally putting them on the streets," the Religious concluded.

At 4 a.m. on June 18, the group of eight entered the hotel which has been unoccupied for 10 years. Using flashlights, they negotiated the calf-high debris that included commodes, bathtubs, and carpet pieces as well as rats and cockroaches, and climbed the marble stairs to the seventh floor where they waited until late morning to go onto the roof and unfurl a banner. "House the Homeless Here," it demanded.

However, rather than being arrested for trespassing as expected, the original group of eight was joined by homeless people and a spirit of community began to develop.

"The homeless are so beaten down," Sister Geary explained, "that they're just surviving with no energy left. Their shoulders are bent over, their eyes are dead. I saw this change. Now there's hope and spirit and light in their eyes. They are talking to one another. They are no longer hunched in on themselves but willing to reach out and help one another. It's a miracle!"

Leaders of the action estimate a maximum of 200 homeless people were part of the "community" during the first week. A core leadership developed, taking charge of enforcing the no smoking, no drinking, no drugs rule as well as maintain 24-hour security. This allowed PUJ members to take on a supportive role and to rotate their sleeping at the hotel.

Two blocks away, St. Luke's Episcopal Church made the unused showers of its Samaritan House available and the hotel "guests" ate lunch at St. Luke's soup kitchen.

As the hotel was cleaned of debris by the occupants, the street curb in front became more and more obstructed. According to Sister Geary the leaders advised Portman Companies, "Please take care of your property. Pick up the garbage in front. Be responsible for your property, or give us the deed and we'll take care of it." Portman provided containers for the debris, as well as portable toilets and tissue.

The hotel community was visited by firemen, first to map out how they would respond in case of a fire and then to return with clothing for the occupants. Police came by "not to harass but to see how it's going," Sister Geary said. One night they brought doughnuts. One homeless family, Bobby Cox Jones and her daughters, Patches Cox, 10, and Mary Cox, 8, will soon move into an apartment made available through a local church.

A Mercedes Benz pulled up in front of the hotel one morning and its occupant handed over a fully equipped tool box for Kenneth Charles Walker, a skilled carpenter. Walker came to Atlanta several months ago after working in Charleston, SC, rebuilding homes devastated by Hurricane Hugo. He became homeless when he was ejected from a temporary residence and then lost his job when his tools were stolen.

The two Sisters expressed anger and disappointment at response from the leadership and personnel of the Catholic church adjacent to the Imperial Hotel.

"To me the Church is as impotent as politicians in this city when it comes to giving bread to the poor," Sister Schlicksup said. "Here we are located next to a church, a house of worship, a Christian community. We have been refused water, refused bathroom facilities, food, shade. I was told (by parish authorities) that the Imperial Hotel was 'my work' -- that Sacred heart had its work to tend to. My response was, 'I'm confused, I thought that homeless people, people living in the Imperial Hotel, were all God's people and that our work as God's shepherds was to care for God's people. But I see churches more concerned about their buildings and grounds than about God's people. And that's the same thing we're getting from the city."

Parish authorities were taken by surprise by the PUJ action, according to Father Dan O'Connor, pastor of Sacred Heart.

"We are always very concerned when anybody occupies the Imperial Hotel," he said, "because the church shares a wall with the structure and it is a fire hazard and security risk. The security needs here are tremendous and a concern to us all the time. We can't be lax."

The pastor said the hotel occupants "have been very good neighbors. There's a lot of discipline, no drinking or smoking. They've been very considerate to us."

"We helped them at the beginning," he said, "letting the Religious and children use the church restrooms." He says he intervened with the Portman Company to provide portable toilets.

"We're running a parish," he pointed out. "We had three funerals the first week (of the occupancy). We didn't know what to expect."

Sister Schlicksup describes her yearlong experience at the Open Door Community ministering to the homeless as "living with the pain of poverty, an experience of letting go. I don't plan. I live day by day. My life has become more god-centered. God is with the poor. The more I am with the poor, the more I am with God."

On July 2, the leadership within the group of homeless agreed to move to a new shelter opened by the city on Memorial Drive. As of the morning of July 3, members of the People for Urban Justice remained in the hotel, insisting that although the city had taken steps to house the homeless, the business community had done nothing.