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| Why inmates are boarding up Atlanta’s abandoned and vacant homes |
| By clatl.com- Max Blau |
| Published: 02/19/2015 |
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Bradford Harper appreciates being outdoors. The 57-year-old native of Pelham, Ga., has worked for several hours on this crisp Thursday afternoon in late December, clearing brush, cleaning up trash, and boarding up an abandoned one-story home on Oliver Street in the English Avenue neighborhood. "The work was outside," says Harper, standing in the yard he helped clean with his fellow inmates. He admits the work is better than preparing food or cleaning inside the Atlanta City Detention Center, where he's spent the past couple of months sitting in a cell following an arrest for public drinking that led to a disorderly conduct charge. "Picking up trash gives you a chance to get some fresh air." Harper that day was one of a dozen people working for the city's "Clean and Close" program, a new initiative that uses inmates' labor to curb blight in neighborhoods filled with abandoned or vacant properties. Last March the concept won Atlanta's first-ever citywide employee idea competition and turned into a full-time operation three months later. Read More. |
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