Atlanta Homeless Shelter & Its Clients Temporarily Dodge The Boot; State Appeals Court: Trial Judge Improperly Prevented Group To Present Evidence To Fight Foreclosure

In Atlanta, Georgia, The Atlanta Journal Constitution reports:

• The Metro Atlanta Task Force for the Homeless has collected a series of recent legal victories it hopes will result in something the group has sought for more than a year: a day in court where it can fight a pending eviction.
  
  A Fulton County judge had ordered the group to surrender its facility after it defaulted on its mortgage. But the Georgia Court of Appeals on Monday ruled the Fulton judge did not allow the Task Force to present evidence to fight the foreclosure.
  
  “We are feeling confident that we are on a path toward a complete trial with evidence presented,” said Anita Beaty, executive director of the Task Force. “We believe we will win. It looks like we will have our day in court.”
  
  Fulton County Superior Court judge Craig Schwall had originally ordered Beaty in February 2012 to turn over the shelter to a team run by the United Way of Metropolitan Atlanta, which would spend six months relocating the men who used the shelter. The facility would then be turned over to Premium Funding Solutions, a finance firm that acquired the deed after the task force defaulted on its mortgage.
  
  Known more commonly as Peachtree and Pine, the homeless facility is located in the heart of Atlanta where downtown meets Midtown.
  
  Beaty said that, depending on the weather, the facility usually served between 300-500 homeless people a daily. That does not include up to 150 more who were receive services or training there.
  
  “What we’re doing keeps me going,” said Beaty, addressing the weight of the center’s service coupled with the legal battle. “This place is really operating with a degree of self-sufficiency. To offer the services which have been offered is stunning and exciting.”

For more, see Homeless shelter continues to fight for survival.

See also, Atlanta Progressive News: Task Force for the Homeless Wins Two Georgia Court of Appeals Rulings.

For the ruling, see Metro Atlanta Task Force For The Homeless, Inc. v. Premium Funding Solutions, LLC, A12A2345, A12A2346 (March 29, 2013).