A wing of the Atlanta City Detention Center on Peachtree Street SW has spent the last year and a half doing something the building was never designed for. Since January 2025, an underused section of the city-owned facility has housed the Center for Diversion and Services, an around-the-clock hub where people in crisis can shower, eat, sleep, see a case worker and get connected to housing, recovery and mental health care.
The center has now recorded more than 2,000 diversions, according to a new Atlanta Magazine report. That figure is well short of what planners sketched out. The space was built to serve somewhere between 10,000 and 14,000 people a year, and before opening the city projected upwards of 40 guests a day. An April report put the real daily average at five or six.
How the center works
Planning started in 2021 as a partnership among the City of Atlanta, Grady Health System and the Policing Alternatives and Diversion Initiative, known as PAD. The city and Fulton County fund it. Grady runs the facility and handles behavioral and clinical screenings, and PAD, a nonprofit that also answers the city's 311 nonemergency calls, was brought in to handle long-term stabilization. Before choosing the downtown building, the coalition toured similar centers in Houston and Tucson.
Inside, the details are practical: a clothing room with pressed shirts and pants, a freezer stocked with ready meals, and staff whose stated goal is to help guests feel human again. Most people arrive with City of Atlanta officers, and 17 other metro agencies, from Roswell to Union City, partner with the program. Center director Karen Sutton, a Grady clinical social worker, has been making the case for it at police briefings and academy classes.
Why the numbers lag
Use depends on whether first responders choose the option, and some people are ineligible, including minors. Watchdog coalition Play Fair ATL argues the city should make diversion an expectation rather than a choice, given the roughly $6 million a year invested. The police department told the magazine it remains fully committed to the center.
The program also hit a contract snag this spring. In March, PAD declined to sign a renewal that it said would shorten how long its staff could work with each client, and it withdrew from the building while talks continued. Services such as housing assessments shifted to a referral network of local providers. Board members have since voiced support for restoring PAD's role, and Grady says the center is ready to take more guests after the Fulton County Sheriff's Office stopped accepting certain misdemeanor bookings in late May.
What the building sale means
The center's address is now part of a much bigger downtown real estate story. Fulton County opened talks with a $56.5 million offer, followed with a counteroffer, and Mayor Andre Dickens has now agreed to sell the building to the county for $68 million, pending City Council approval. Local advocates have long pushed to turn more of the facility into community space, so how the diversion center fits into the county's plans is a question worth watching.
For the people who have come through its doors, the stakes are personal. One former guest profiled by the magazine went from sleeping outside a library to a recovery house bed within days, and now plans to teach yoga to others working through homelessness and mental health challenges.
Original reporting by Gray Chapman for Atlanta Magazine.