A man sleeps under the bridge near Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta.
Through the gloaming and the cold, blustery winds, I drove around downtown Atlanta on Wednesday with Kem Jackson, a homeless man who pointed out the "cat holes" where his contemporaries dig in for the night.
There were tent cities under highway ramps near I-20, there were a growing number of men setting up under the viaduct near Grady Memorial Hospital, and there were random huddled forms tucked away all over, near fences, in doorways or some just plopped down on sidewalks like they gave up trying.
As the number of downtown pedestrians dropped, the homeless became more noticeable, lugging bags, bedrolls and battered suitcases.
Even in the homeless community, there's a pecking order. And the hapless man on Peachtree Street was a cautionary tale.
I met the 57-year-old Jackson near the now closed Peachtree-Pine shelter in Midtown. The massive brick edifice that once housed 500 or more wretched souls each night was finally, after much acrimony, shut down in December of last year.
A year after its closing, I wanted to assess the situation. It was said that closing the large shelter would flood the other facilities and there would be nowhere for many to go on nights when it got cold.
Anecdotal evidence shows the number of homeless people on the sidewalks of downtown and Midtown and on MARTA or at the airport (two places that Jackson haunts) has increased.
However, the official count of homeless people in Atlanta dropped again this year, down 14 percent from 2017 to 3,076, according to a point-in-time census conducted in January. Homelessness in Atlanta has been cut almost in half since 2011, according to city numbers.
There was, however, a slight increase in the number of "unsheltered" homeless, to 732, the first bump in years.
The former Peachtree-Pine homeless shelter is quiet these days.
George Chidi, the "social impact director" at Central Atlanta Progress and point man for the closing of Peachtree-Pine, said there may have been reverberations from the Pine's closing. Or maybe because of gentrification and the lack of affordable housing. He said the city also needs a day center for the homeless, the lack of which makes them more visible.
Some 40 percent have "serious mental illness" issues and 40 percent have substance abuse problems, according to the city count.
I'd wager it's higher in both categories.
Residents weren't having it when there were plans to open a small homeless shelter in the Pittsburgh neighborhood of Atlanta in 2016. Placing a new shelter in the city is almost an impossible task.
Chidi noted that Jack Hardin, a lawyer who has been a leader in fighting homelessness since the 1980s, this year started twisting arms to fund outreach teams to go out and build relationships with the homeless.
Case in point: Will Woods, a homeless man with piles of belongings and survival gear who was getting ready to set up in the tunnel near Grady Memorial Hospital.
Will Woods stands near a mountain of belongings owned by him and other homeless men who camp out under the tunnel near Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta.
He said 255 people were at Peachtree-Pine in August 2017 when social workers came to assess residents there. Almost all, he said, were placed in housing.
However, many people there melted away, not wanting to deal with officialdom. Or somehow they missed out, having been away from the place for a while, like Jackson, my guide.
Kem Jackson, a 57-year-old man who is homeless, drove around with me on a cold evening recently and discussed the "cat holes" where people on the street sleep in Midtown and downtown Atlanta. Here, he was repackaging his belongings moments before a man at the business told him to leave.
As the evening wore on with Kem Jackson, I drove him to a door stoop at a business on a quiet street downtown where he stored gear. A man came out and told him to move it.
We hoisted four garbage bags of stuff and a pull-cart into my minivan. He said he had to pick up his Social Security card at his daughter's home in Lithonia, 20 miles to the east. He needed it for work at a temp service.
We drove to Lithonia, where I thought he'd stay for the night. But he merely dumped some of his belongings there, made a phone call, and jumped back into the van. Why didn't he stay there? Who knows? Probably lots of water under that bridge.
We returned to downtown Atlanta, where he pointed to a bushy outcropping right off the street at the busy Ted Turner Drive. That's a good spot, he said. I flipped on my blinkers as he unloaded his gear.
Good night, he said. And thanks.
No problem, I responded, as I drove off to a fire awaiting me at home.