Cafe 458
A. B. Short
458 Edgewood Ave. NE
Atlanta, Ga. 30312
(404) 525-3276

Set in a gritty but historic neighborhood just east of downtown Atlanta Cafe 458 looks improbably like a chic bistro. Decked out in broad bands of pastel pink and green, it completes the image with a discreet sign: "Seating By Reservation Only."

Little alters that impression when you step into the bright, airy dining room. Smiling waiters bustle about in crisp white aprons, and a blackboard lists the entrees of the day.

But Cafe 458 is a bistro with a very special mission. This non-profit operation, in fact, is a restaurant for Atlanta's homeless, who get reservations through referrals and earn the right to dine there by agreeing to participate in a focused program aimed at getting them back on their feet and back into the community.

While simply feeding homeless people in decent, dignified surroundings is a big step, Cafe 458 does more: It uses the attractions of quality food and surroundings to get homeless people talking about their problems and starting to focus on goals.

"We say the food's not the focus, it's just the hook to get people together for a conversation," explained Betty Voight, who with her husband, Dave, is a member of the 10-person commune of unpaid volunteers, The Community of Hospitality, that runs Cafe 458. "It's a way to develop relationships, from which emerge the other issues that have to be addressed."

The community took over and, with the help of volunteers, renovated an abandoned liquor store to house the cafe. It opened in 1988, and was soon serving up to 65 people a day. "Reservations" are by referral from any organization in Atlanta's social-services community, and the only requirement is that people chosen to dine at the cafe must agree to begin working toward specific goals, even a goal as simple as replacing eyeglasses or getting the two forms of identification needed to qualify for benefits.

"You tell us where you want to be in three months, six months or a year, and we'll work with you," A. B. Short said. "Tell us your goals, and we'll help you reach those goals."

Toward that end, the cafe quickly grafted on an array of essential services, all operated by volunteers: Alcoholics Anonymous, Narcotics Anonymous or Twelve Step meetings ... free haircuts ... a medical van ... legal services.

"We're talking about very basic, fundamental, short-term, ACHIEVABLE goals," Short said. "Self-esteem is a major problem when you're poor and homeless. If you get small victories to build on, you'll start getting back that sense of self-worth, that you can control your life."

Within the last six months of 1992, this model program served more than 5,000 meals (lunch only, Mondays through Fridays) and brought happiness and a little hope to hundreds of Atlanta's street people. And, thanks to the low personnel costs assumed by its unpaid, communal staff, it does all this on a budget of about $135,000 a year.

But a year or so after the Cafe opened, its organizers pushed a step beyond.

Recognizing that drug and alcohol addiction was keeping many homeless people from their goals, the group added a residential, long-term program, staffed entirely by volunteers. Ten men at a time, recruited from the cafe's guests, reside in a safe, clean facility near the cafe, where they receive intense, ongoing group and individual therapy and participate in "small businesses," a bulk-mail operation and a housing-rehabilitation program, consciously intended not as job training but as a way to get recovering clients back into the routine of taking responsibility for daily work.

Nationally, Short says, 90 percent of the graduates of drug and alcohol programs "relapse" after six months. Fewer than 10 percent of Cafe 458's "Recovery" graduates do. One of the program's graduates is quickly rising through the ranks at Firestone Corp. Another is now a social worker with Fulton County Social Services. It's a wonderful model ... and like many such, it succeeds because the underlying premise is simple, and it's carried out with competence and care.

(Last visit: Summer 1995)

All the feature stories on @GRASS-ROOTS.ORG's pages are reported and written by Robin Garr, a prize-winning journalist who has visited more than 500 innovative grassroots programs in all 50 states since 1990.

Browse his book, Reinvesting In America, at Amazon.com.

Send him E-mail.

Back to the @GRASS-ROOTS.ORG Home Page