IdyllopusPress Presents

Looking up the Metro Atlanta Homeless Task Force, I was reminded of the art gallery they have there for the homeless, with classes each Thursday night. Follow the link here to view an online gallery of the work of some of the artists. I hope you do. Because much of the artistry exhibited on the site is more than just plain good. It’s damn good. I don’t know how that project is faring these days. I first read of it several years ago. It bothers me that all the art at the site was posted August 3rd 2004 and that there have been no updates and that the links to works on the “artist page” are all broken and the featured artist page is also out of commission. It bothers me that the “upcoming events” and “about us” pages are both blank, the “art tips” and “publications” page links are nonfunctional, and that the page for “Classes–Thursday Night” simply reads, “Thursday night is an open night to come and draw and paint and talk to other artist (sic).” It bothers me because it makes me wonder about funding. And it makes me wonder about the health of the project. It makes me wonder about interest in the project. A semi-annual update of these few pages and check to make sure the links are functioning would not involve very much (aside from the getting good pics of the art) and I wonder why it hasn’t been done.

I did a Google search for MATSFTL and art and came up pretty dry. I located a Creative Loafing announcement for an exhibit there in January of 2003. Nothing else.

In the results came up also a page on the Mad Housers’ website which has nothing to do with the MATSFTL art gallery. But is about the homeless in Atlanta and architects and others who have loosely banded together to build what is called “Mad Houser” dwellings for the homeless–small, weather-secure cubicles placed in small already-formed homeless cities in unclaimed wooded urban areas. The Mad Housers interview clients looking for people who will take care of their cubicles, usually in the setting of an established homeless camp that is being converted or has been converted to Mad Houser dwellings.

They have a couple of interesting links on their links page. One is to a website on Dignity Village which is a homeless camp sanctioned by the city of Portland, Oregon. Another is to Modest Needs which “is a non-profit organization reaching out to hard-working individuals and families who suddenly find themselves faced with small, emergency expenses that they have no way to afford on their own.”

The man profiled in the Mad Houser Summer 2005 newsletter has been homeless in the Atlanta area for 5 to 6 years. He was a veteran, a Marine for 2 years.

The winter 2004 newsletter describes how the Mad Housers were running into difficulties with the old style of cubicle housing, in which individuals had room to stand, were 6 by 8 feet and 1o feet tall and equipped with a wood-burning stove. Whereas these had been concealed by the urban forests in the industrial zones, vigorious new development and gentrification had reduced the potential sites for this style of hut, so a new shelter was developed that was 4 by 8 feet, the front wall being 48 inches high and the back 40 inches high. The stoves in the larger huts were impossible in the new “low riders” but the combination of the occupant’s body heat and insulation is given as providing sufficient warmth during the winter.

The history of the Mad Housers extends back to the 1980s and an informal network of Georgia Tech architecture students who had observed the structures built by the homeless and wanted to come up with a design that was safer and more secure. Room for a bed, a little storage, and a door that locked. Mad Housers was incorporated as a nonprofit in 1988.

An individual profiled in the Winter 2003 newsletter had been in the a car wreck when he was about 30 that left him in a body cast for a year and in a cast for two years after that. He’d been in high-rise construction work, a job he could no longer handle following his long recuperation. His history is vague but it sounds as though he’d been homeless for the past 15 years and with Atlanta as his base had biked around the country with his belongings. Then 18 months prior he’d had a stroke which left him on disibility. He was now the proud owner of a Mad Houser hut and was planning to stay put.

He’d served a couple of years in the army.

An individual profiled in the Spring 2003 newsletter was grateful for his Mad Houser structure but described the difficulty of his life. How in September, preparing for winter months, he began making charcoal from wood for keeping warm in the winter in the stove provided. In the summer he had a garden on some neighboring land and shared the produce with neighboring Mad Housers. Getting water to the garden was difficult and he was planning to set up a device to catch rain water. He wanted more efficient lighting, at the present using candles and electricity from a car battery. “My house is my sancturary; it gives me more peace than most have and a sense of belonging. Each day I count my blessings and thank God for what he has given me.”

Another individual had lived in a Mad Houser hut for 10 years.

My husband is acquainted with a couple who for ten years had permitted a homeless individual to live on the wooded area at the back of their in town property. He was a veteran on disibility and had dropped out of society. He lived in a tent for most of that ten years than became ill, at which point the Mad Housers built a hut for him. He resided in the structure for a month then died. Another homeless person moved into the hut and has lived there since.