A WHITE PREACHER AND HIS CHURCH HAS GIVEN HOPE TO ONE OF THE MOST DANGEROUS HOODS IN ATLANTA GA

The Atlanta Hope Center is a lot more than just a church. One way they minister to people is by helping them improve the quality of their lives. It's been a little more than a year since Reverend Tim Downs and his family started the center. People in the community say it has already had a huge impact. When Reverend Tim Downs felt the call to start a church in Atlanta, the first thing he did was make a couple of calls. "We called the mayor's office, the police department and we asked them where the worst crime rates were at and they said Sylvan Hills-Pittsburgh community.

So we started the church right here," said Downs. The center is in a formerly abandoned strip center off of Sylvan Road. It's across the street from last month's smash and grab robbery involving a U-Haul truck and not far from a gang beating that took place in February. Those are just a couple of the more than 1,500 felonies committed in the Sylvan Hills and Pittsburgh communities since January of last year, according to Atlanta police. "It's rough. I mean a couple of nights ago there were people shot across the street. Gunshots [can be heard] just about every night. But you also have the good. We try to find the gold in everybody," said Downs.

Narumi Kakiuchi runs the coin laundry next door and thought she had seen it all. She was skeptical at first. "I don't want to talk to him because I really doubt him. Why he come here? This is a real dangerous place. Why he come here? After he moved here, everyday getting changing," said Kakiuchi. Constance Cover has lived in the area for three years and she agrees. She says the area was plagued by drugs and prostitution before Downs came to the neighborhood. "But when Pastor Tim came it was a whole different thing," said Cover. The center is more than just a church on Sunday. In an effort to give hope to the hopeless as Reverend Downs puts it, the center also offers free GED classes, clothes and food to go along with love and compassion. "The overcoming class, that's the biggest thing.

We got parenting class to teach us how to raise our kids right. We've got cooking class to teach us how to cook the right food for our family and budget our money," said Cover. "If they've grown up in a drug ridden home, if they've grown up around people who don't work or don't have an education, that is generally where they are going to go back to. Now we have an opportunity here to help them spiritually and help them in the aspect of better quality of life. So I think that's the key to it," said Downs. Downs says the goal is to have 20 churches around Atlanta's inner city in the next five years