![]() ![]() She also said it fails to adequately help the homeless make the transition to a better life. Known as Peachtree and Pine, the shelter has amassed other critics, including the administration of Mayor Shirley Franklin, a Democrat whose father was temporarily homeless.ĭebi Starnes, the mayor’s policy advisor on homelessness, said the shelter, which can accommodate 1,000 people per night, is too big to be properly managed. ![]() Terrill says the shelter attracts the kind of people who have broken into his bar, O’Terrill’s, and harassed and mugged his neighbors and clients. The perpetrators, he says, are the residents of the massive emergency homeless shelter nearby at Peachtree and Pine streets. His home-grown strategy for making the neighborhood safer is the latest manifestation of a lingering controversy that has engulfed this prized patch of real estate. “It scares the bejesus out of ‘em,” Terrill said, smiling. Sometimes he tells them that he’s capturing them on video: the Bum Bot’s camera feeds into a big-screen TV back at his pub, giving patrons a hyper-local dose of reality TV. So Terrill speaks to them through the Bum Bot, transmitting his voice via walkie-talkie: Move along, he tells the loiterers, or get wet. The police sometimes round them up, Terrill says, but soon, it seems, they are back on the street. Using a twin-joystick remote, Terrill usually sends his robot up the street to the parking lot of a day-care center, where a sketchy, drug-dealing crowd congregates after dark. ![]()
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