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Welcome to the Georgia Today podcast. Here we bring you the latest reports from the GPB newsroom. On today's episode, Vice President J.D. vance visits Peachtree City. Tuberculosis is on the rise in metro Atlanta, and a new apartment building in Gwinnett county offers a place where unhoused men can get back on their feet.
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Thinking that extended stays or places that are open 24 hours or even encampments are sufficient for the unhoused is not acceptable here in Lawrenceville. We want to create a high standard for all our citizens and residents.
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Today is Friday, August 22nd. I'm Peter Biello, and this is GEORGIA today. Vice President J.D. vance promoted the Trump administration's economic agenda during a visit to Peachtree City yesterday. GPB's Sarah Kalis reports Vance addressed an.
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Enthusiastic crowd of hundreds at the Alta Refrigeration manufacturing facility. He praised the administration's policies making 2017 tax cuts permanent and eliminating taxes on tips. He also highlighted tariffs on foreign manufactured goods.
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And that's what President Trump's economic policies are all about, My friends. It's the carrot and the stick. We want to make it easier to build in America. We want to want to make it harder to build overseas.
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Meanwhile, Democratic Party of Georgia chair Charlie Bailey says Vance is trying to deceive Georgians about what the Trump administration's economic policies actually do and that funding for health care could suffer. For GPB News, I'm Sarah Kalis. In Peachtree City.
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Hundreds gathered at First Baptist Church of Atlanta today to remember DeKalb County Police Officer David Rose. James GPB's Amanda Andrews reports he died during a shooting outside the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on August 8th.
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Following the service, Rose was honored with a rendition of Amazing Grace as well as a flyover and 21 gun salute. Attendees included his family, law enforcement governor Brian Kemp, and many who work at the CDC, including Lisa Walker. She says she's experienced a rollercoaster of emotions since the shooting and is grateful for the opportunity to honor Rose.
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Cause I was there on the 8th.
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And but you know, we have a.
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Strong community, the agency and we're supporting each other.
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So it's one day at a time.
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Following the service, Rose's wife and daughter, who wore a shirt reading My Daddy is a Hero, were presented with a proclamation and American flag. For GPB News, I'm Amanda Andrews.
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An internal CDC email reveals the Georgia man who shot at the CDC likely tried to enter the campus two days before the attack. Security video suggests Patrick White attempted entry on August 6 but was turned away. The email says law enforcement believes it was white. The 30 year old blamed the COVID 19 vaccine for his depression before the shooting that killed Officer Rose. The Georgia Bureau of Investigations says the investigation is ongoing. Cases of tuberculosis have been slowly ticking up in metro Atlanta. GPB's Sophie Gradis has more on how public health officials are responding to Globally.
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Tuberculosis or TB causes more deaths than any other single infectious disease. After a steady decline, we're now seeing cases go up nationwide, including in Georgia. In 2024, there were 254TB cases statewide. Fulton, Gwinnett, Cobb and DeKalb counties made up over half of those cases, with DeKalb leading this year. DeKalb County Public Health has managed an average of 50 active TB cases a month from May through July, according to data presented at a recent board meeting. It invested in a new clinic to treat TB patients that's open now at the Richardson Health Center. Anyone can get TB and there's no vaccine. A consistent treatment schedule is key to keep infections from becoming chronic or fatal. For GPB News, I'm Sophie Graudis.
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Attorneys representing Mario Guevara are asking a federal court to order his immediate release. The Spanish language reporter based in metro Atlanta has been jailed for two months. The motion claims he has been unconstitutionally targeted for his journalism. Court records show immigration officials primary objection to releasing him on bond is how he reports on law enforcement. He's being held even though he has valid authorization to work in the US Was granted bond by an immigration judge and has a path to a green card through his adult son. For the first time in three decades, the American Academy of Pediatrics is offering its own science backed data to make recommendations for children's Covid vaccines. Cancer GPB's Alan Eldredge reports the advice differs from that of the U.S. department of Health and Human Services.
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While HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Does not recommend Covid vaccines for healthy children of any age, scientists are strongly recommending the shots for all children between six months and two years of age. Dr. Paul Offit is the director of the Vaccine Education center at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. He says half the children killed last year by COVID 19 were previously healthy.
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When you have a secretary of Health and Human Services who is willing to ignore the science because he has these false, fixed, immutable, science resistant beliefs that vaccines are doing more harm than good, he is a dangerous man to be in this position.
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Offit says he's optimistic that insurance companies will back the AAP because it's a lot less expensive to pay for a vaccine than a hospitalization. For GPB News, I'm Ellen Eldredge.
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At a brick two story apartment building in the city of Lawrenceville, northeast of Atlanta, a construction worker cuts a hole in a bathroom countertop. By his feet on the dusty, unfinished floor is the porcelain sink that will soon fill that hole. Soon this and seven other new apartments will be available for unhoused men in Gwinnett County. Called the First Housing center, it's the result of a public private partnership years in the making. According to Georgia's 2024 Point in Time count of unhoused people, men are more likely than women to go without shelter. A few years ago, Jen Young mobilized the Nonprofit she runs, Impact46, to do something about that.
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This building became an option, which is owned by the city of Lawrenceville. And so they became not only our landlord for this project, but a program partner as well.
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Through various funding sources, including Federal grants, this 70 year old building is being transformed from a crumbling eyesore into a safe, clean dwelling decked out with brand new plumbing, walls, windows and air conditioning. Recently, I met Young at the First Housing center, where she told me she's still searching for ways to diversify the funding sources for it. The men who need it will live here for free, and ongoing costs include so called wraparound services.
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So from the time that a participant is referred here by the Lawrenceville Police Department, they come into our intake room and they receive a psychosocial assessment by our clinician who is on staff. From there they work with the case manager to form the treatment plan and the care plan for that participant. And then we look at all the barriers, we look at the different things that they're going to need in order to be successful when they leave here. And so from day one, we start planning those things.
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Young says she's optimistic this new model will work, in part because the old model of arresting or displacing people through encampment sweeps was not working. More and more men were living in cars, couch surfing or setting up outdoor.
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Camps, thinking that extended stays or places that are open 24 hours or even encampments are sufficient for the unhoused is not acceptable Here in Lawrenceville. We want to create a high standard for all our citizens and residents. And so having a building that was already designed as a one bedroom apartment will allow us to move those men in here. And we've also done a lot of research that non congregate shelters are far more successful than congregate. So each man has their own independence and their Own care plan that is designed specifically for them.
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How long can someone stay in one of these apartments once they move in?
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Each participant that enrolls and agrees to our terms, conditions, and program requirements will be able to stay up to 89 days. But we will have milestones that they have to meet every 30 days.
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Milestones. Can you give me an example?
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Sure. Our milestones are designed for what it looks like for anyone to be stabilized. So whether it's wraparound services, employment, if they're able, it may be subsidized income, all those different things that are needed for those that are homeless, we will be offering here at the center.
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So, for example, if they're able to work, they need to get a job by, I don't know, a month or two months.
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In we look at those things, we look at all the barriers. So we do have an individualized care plan for every single person that comes here. It is tailored to that person based on their barriers and based on what we believe will be the definition of success and stabilization for them, which does vary person to person. So each plan is tailored to that person. But if they are able, we'll look at bridge jobs, and that's where our partnerships really come into play. We have employment partners who offer second chance jobs for those who have had a criminal background. We work with partners who do stabilization in housing for those who have a criminal background or terrible credit. So we've really tailored the program based on the demographic of who we're working with.
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I imagine there are communities, people in communities, listening to this conversation and saying, you know, seems like the stars aligned in Lawrenceville, right? There's nonprofits helping out. There's schools, there's churches. The police department's on board, county governments on board, city governments on board. We just don't have that here. Can you explain that maybe why they're wrong? Are they wrong, or is it not possible in some communities just because there's not enough resources there?
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I think for us, the way that we have been able to work together, collaborate, and coordinate our efforts to see collective impact here in Lawrenceville is because of the way that Impact 46 was started. Our origin story as a nonprofit started eight years before we were even incorporated. And it began with our community coming together and asking hard questions about economics and diversity and homelessness and education and overall health within our community. So they did that for eight years before deciding to incorporate a nonprofit. And I think that's what set it up. And so when I came on as executive director, my marching order was. Was to actually mobilize that network. It just takes the right people in the room with the right vision and to be like minded because if you don't have that, then it's just a bunch of arguing. It's a bunch of opinions. And so we have that. We have diversification of thought and idea and background. But at the same time, our common denominator is this city. And so we keep coming back to that. What does it mean to make Lawrenceville healthy? And for us right now, this is the focus.
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So what I'm hearing you say is that if a community doesn't have it all in place right now, it's time to get cracking. Right. Get moving, mobilize, talk to your neighbors and get something moving because it's not going to be left to someone else.
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Yeah. And I think I've heard a lot of no's, a lot more no's than I have yeses. But when you hear the right yes, then you can really move and there's a lot of momentum and there's a catalyst to that. Something we need. You need the catalyst in order to kind of propel forward. And so a lot of people will think this just happened overnight. But I mean, I spent a lot of time with leaders for two, almost three years before we ever launched anything like this. So I think the relational capital, the social capital came first before the finances and before the ideas. But we moved at the speed of trust. And so it takes leadership to be able to do that. It takes thick skin and it takes a lot of courage to keep going because there are days you want to stop. There are days you just want to go do something easy because this is not easy work, but it's definitely worth it. And that's why I keep going.
- [12:35]
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Well, Jen Young, executive director of Impact 46, thank you so much for speaking with me. Hundreds of low income parents in Georgia are billed for child support after their kids were placed in foster care. Now one mother has filed a civil rights lawsuit against the state to end the practice completely. Anna Linda Martinez's lawsuit, filed on Tuesday, claims state agencies knew these families were impoverished but charged them anyway. The federal government advised limiting child support requests in 2022, and Georgia changed its rules last year. But those rules do not apply to older cases like Martinez's. A state Department of Human Services spokesperson declined to comment. Advocates nationwide have long criticized child welfare agencies for removing children from low income families for causes rooted in financial struggles, all while states fail to help them provide for their basic needs. Three state agencies have mobilized in the wake of mill closures in southeast Georgia. The Technical College System of Georgia, WorkSource Georgia and the Georgia Department of Labor have announced a collaborative effort to support 1,100 workers facing layoffs. Paper industry giant International Paper yesterday announced plans to close its containerboard mills in Savannah. And Riceboro, a warehouse logistics company plans to build a manufacturing presence in northwest Georgia. Belgium based Stoe Group said Yesterday that its $36 million facility in Gordon county will create about 200 new jobs when it opens next year. The company makes industrial racking systems. The Great Southeast Pollinator Census kicks off today and runs through Sunday. It's an annual citizen science event from the University of Georgia that aims to get a count of pollinators like bees, wasps, flies and butterflies. Last year, more than 18,000 people took part in the census in Georgia, Florida and North and South Carolina. This year, Alabama will join. To participate, just find a pollinator plant and count the pollinators that land on it during a 15 minute time frame. More information can be found at the census website, gsepc.org and that concludes a busy week of news. Thank you so much for tuning in to Georgia Today. We'll be back on Monday, so make sure you subscribe to this podcast and check gpb.org news for updates. If you've got feedback, we'd love to hear from you. Send us an email. The address is Georgia todaypb.org I'm Peter Biello. Thanks again for listening. We'll see you next week. Sam.