Raising a child with special needs and cognitive delays teaches you to find great cause for celebration in many of life’s small victories. Riding a bike, hiking to the top of Stone Mountain, learning to swim… measured against a different metric, these accomplishments can seem Olympian. I say this to preface that when our children and adult family members achieve a significant victory, it warrants community-wide celebration. And I will come back to that in a moment.
In DeKalb County, Georgia, then a fast-growing and leading suburban community of metro Atlanta, a young special education teacher, part-time realtor and County Commissioner, Liane Levetan met a distressed mother whose son, Barry Glazer, had educational and disability needs then poorly met by DeKalb County School District.
Mrs. Glazer found a sympathetic ear, and an ally in Commissioner Levetan. The commissioner—later DeKalb’s first woman CEO, and still later a State Senator—was already known for her pleasant and polite persistence in pursuing community improvements.
A new use for old V.A. campus?
The massive and hulking Veterans Administration campus now along Clairmont Road in Decatur, near the county seat and backing up to Lullwater Park and the Emory University President’s residence, has not always been there. The lake at Lullwater was once the City of Decatur waterworks reservoir; the remains of this can still be found in the Medlock Woods nearby.
The V.A. previously had a much smaller facility on Peachtree Road, in what is now Brookhaven, Georgia, and most recently fronting Brookhaven Park, but we’ll return to that later as well.
Commissioner Levetan convinced the federal government and V.A. to hand over that abandoned campus to DeKalb County at no cost. Levetan had scouted the facility crawling through an unsecure window with Abe Saporta, another longtime community activist and Atlanta area resident. The pair determined that the building had good bones and could be converted into several worthwhile public uses. Levetan envisioned renovating the abandoned structure into an Adult Services Center for those with cognitive impairments, in its beautific setting with a large greenspace as its backyard. She would secure funding for the facility via an upcoming DeKalb bond referendum, which included a long wish list of public improvements.
A champion to champion the cause
Soon after, while taking a short vacation in Miami with her husband Phil Levetan, Liane would spot world champion boxer Muhammed Ali at the famous Fountainbleau Hotel dining with his family. Never shy or afraid of self-introduction, Liane walked right up to Mr. Ali, spoke of her dreamed services center back home in Atlanta, and asked the Champ if he would consider supporting and endorsing the upcoming Bond Referendum. In less time than a boxing referee could call one of Ali’s many former opponents OUT… Ali said he was IN. But how to record and capture his words of support?
Phil Levetan was dispatched to a Miami Radio Shack, returning with a cassette tape recorder. The All-Time Greatest then gave a great sales pitch advocating for fighting hard for those striving daily to lead a normal and productive life. Ms. Levetan, ever the tactician and vote counter knew well that Ali’s enthusiastic swing should connect well with the fast-growing Black population in suburbs across DeKalb County. She and her husband returned to Atlanta with that casette (she still has the tape), and that radio ad moved masses, causing the bond referendum to pass decisively. The Barry Glazer Center opened and through various names and iterations, continually operated at that Peachtree Road location until the mid 2020s.
Government cooperation and a funding partner
The City of Brookhaven meanwhile wanted to expand its green spaces and parks, and specifically its signature Brookhaven Park, just a few hundred yards from its gleaming new City Centre, then under construction. While the latter was in pre-development, Brookhaven Council member Madeleine Simmons, a gifted trial lawyer, led negotiations with DeKalb County to secure rights to the Peachtree Road frontage and which the county still owned, and then approached Claratel, the private non-profit operators of DeKalb’s Community Service Board (CSB) as well as owner/operators the aging Adult Services Center. Brookhaven pledged $5-million to Claratel for its relocation to a new facility, designed and purpose-built to serve its clientele.
I mention some of these details because it’s rare for different layers and levels of government to plan and cooperate effectively, rather than operating within silos and different spheres of influence. Brookhaven had already broken that mold with the development of Skyland Park and the co-location with the DeKalb School District’s John Lewis Elementary School, this second initiative simply demonstrates that combining resources and efforts may be part of the Brookhaven Way, or even bring some gravitas to the city’s marketing slogan, “Brookhaven: Better Together.”
Community input sought and received for new center
Claratel took the $5-million to expand an existing, underutilized DeKalb Recovery Center facility on Winn Way in Decatur, Georgia. Emory Decatur Hospital (long known as DeKalb General and later DeKalb Medical Center) fronts that street. A cluster of medical office buildings, DeKalb’s Crisis Center and DeKalb’s Public Health Department are all neighbors. But this new Claratel Center, to be named the DeKalb Community Access Center, scheduled to open by early 2027, involved interviews with the parents and families of our community for input and meeting the needs of their family members.
This new facility will include Physical and Occupational Therapy Rooms, a cafeteria, a quiet room and a model apartment to practice independent living skills. A charming cafe will welcome visitors to the building, thanks to a generous gift from Claratel board member, Meredith Rothman McCoyd. “Meredith’s Cafe” will allow center clients to work in the cafe as well as access wonderful coffee and pastries prepared daily onsite.
At a recent ground-breaking for the building along Winn Way, Ms. Levetan sat beside Barry Glazer’s mother, still reflecting on her son’s earlier win. Kevin Tanner, Georgia’s Commissioner for the Department of Behavioral Health & Human Services was also on hand, to recognize the planning and delivery of the state’s first and only purpose-built facility of its kind—though hopefully not the last. Tanner also shared news of a facility in Macon, Georgia, located downtown near the Atrium Healthcare Medical Center Hospital and the Macon/Bibb County Law Enforcement Center, offering a crisis intervention and assistance center for the cognitively impaired, who are involved in an accident, arrested for a minor charge or even simply lost after leaving home. The community, state and Atrium funded that support center, to help prevent a minor mishap from becoming a lifetime tragedy or trauma.
It was NOT lost on me that Levetan, Brookhaven Commissioner Simmons, Mrs. Glazer and DeKalb’s current CEO, Lorraine Cochran Johnson, each worked on and blessed this forward thinking Win-Win deal on Winn Way…that perhaps the women in our community not only know better, but with a bit of cooperation and less competition…they do better as well. As our daughter Olivia approaches her high school graduation from DeKalb County Public Schools, the next steps in her path are a bit less certain at this time. But with this new major community resource and facility, I am confident that we will find several safe options and some new key learnings opportunities for our O, as well as thousands of other young men and women much like her. And THAT is a BIG WIN-WIN on Winn Way by almost any definition.
