Left In Alabama

Rescue Mission Move: Human Faces, Human Voices

by: mooncat

Thu Jun 19, 2008 at 15:47:34 PM CDT


There's nothing like having a homeless shelter, especially one with a history of being a problem neighbor, announce they're moving to your neighborhood to really bring people together.  In Huntsville, business owners and residents near the Westminster Christian Academy campus have organized to fight the Downtown Rescue Mission's move, or at the very least make sure they're better neighbors in their new home.   Redeye found this video of two of the people involved with the citizens group.

This is Steve Rousseau, President of the University-Sparkman Business Association.


Here is Pastor T. C. Johnson of St. Luke's Church on Sparkman Drive.

 

mooncat :: Rescue Mission Move: Human Faces, Human Voices
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Just because it's legal doesn't mean it's right (4.00 / 1)

Writers for The Huntsville Times keep referring to the Downtown Rescue Mission issue as a "perfectly legal real estate transaction".  They also maintain that it is "a done deal" so residents and business owners should just bend over and take their gang banging like Girly Men. Well, slavery and Jim Crow laws also were legal but that didn't make them right.  Thank goodness good people worked to change the laws.

The specific issue was whether the council ought to give the mission more time to move from its 9th Avenue property that the city purchased a couple of months back. But the council wouldn't. And what would be the point?

The mission bought and paid $3.7 million for the old Westminster Christian Academy property and has given no hint that it wants to go elsewhere. Apparently, the mission can't get its money back, and neither can the city.

 

Maybe if The Huntsville Times had published this before the "perfectly legal real estate transaction transpired the taxpayers could have been informed regarding the specifics and realities of the deal.

For those few who may not know, the proposed relocation has ignited a firestorm of protest from people who live and do business in the Westminster area. Some demand to know what the city knew and when it knew it. Some demand to know why the city didn't hold hearings on the relocation. And so forth.

I'll get to those issues momentarily. To me, though, the catalyst for everything that followed came in the form of the $3.9 million the city paid for the rescue mission's six acres on 9th Avenue. That's $650,000 per acre.

The Huntsville Times even had a problem with how the issue was beomg debated instead of what was being debated.

Folks in the area have every right to try to find a legal way to prevent the move or - better in my opinion - a place that might be more suitable. A pie-in-the-sky answer doesn't present itself at the moment - at least not to me. So this remains a legitimate community debate.

As long as it doesn't get out of bounds.

Which, in at least one instance, I think it has.

I recently saw an e-mail from the Huntsville Islamic Center. It went out to a bunch of folks.

The residents and business owners had to hire an Attorney to prove  t the City/The Downtown Resue Mission/Westminister Christian Academy  were working hand in hand to grease the skids and get the "deal done" before they could protest.

The letter writer in yesterdays Huntsville Times summed up the whole sordid mess:

The "tail" clearly wagged the "dog" when a fourth- or fifth-tier priority road project was used as an excuse to tell the Mission's operators that they had to immediately vacate. However, rather than formally serve the mission with eminent domain, city leaders took the Don Corleone approach.

They made the mission an offer it couldn't refuse, paying $3.9 million for a dump and a nice neighborhood in which to relocate.

So let's talk about the serious implications of this "perfectly legal real estate deal".

According to Huntsville Police Department Crime statistics there have been almost 700 arrest for crimes that have taken place in the last 4 years by individuals that say they are residents of the Downtown Rescue Mission.

Among these 17 have been protstitution related, two sex offender registrations violations, indecent exposeure, murder, robbery, burglaryu and a host of other felony and misdemeanor crimes including trespassing and public drunkenss.

Acts of prostitution from residents within the shelter appear to be widespread according to a police source.

A large number of the residents are convicted felons and have served time in prison.

There are no know criminal recrods check for residents of the Mission.

The way the Mission presently operates there is no way of knowing if convicted sex offenders, fugitives from justice or a terrorist were seeking shelter.  As a matter of fact, the Mission may be operatin as a safe haven for criminal entities.

The Mission is not under regulation from any local or state agency including state and local health agencies.

It is certainly understandable why the residents of Lowe Mill Village and the private developer wanted the Downtown Rescue Mission gone, but it's not right to transfer thes problem to the residents and business owners of Northwest Huntsville.  Don't they deserve to have a safe neighborhood too? 

Let's be perfectly clear about what is happening:  The city of Huntsville is improving the quality of life in one neighborhood at the expense of the quality of life in another.  It may be legal but it sure isn't right.

It is time for city officals that have lied and created an untrustworthy atmosphere within  the city to come clean, do right, be respectuful, fair and be courteous to ALL it's citizens.



The work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives and the dreams shall never die.~Senator Edward M. Kennedy (D. MA)



Was there another meeting of some sort today? (0.00 / 0)
I gathered from the HT article that Mr. Rousseau is hoping to have a sit down with Mayor Loretta at some point.

Work harder and work smarter!

A sit down with the Mayor at some point? (0.00 / 0)

As you noticed I placed a question mark at the end of the subject title because at this point the Mayor has little to say and is not inclined to meet with the group about this issue.    The City Attorney and department heads agreed to meet with the group only under pressure from two members of the Alabama Legislature from the district.  The City Attorney and department heads don't have the authority to authorize anything so I don't see what the point is in meeting with them.  Since they city lied and said they didn't know where the Mission was moving when they voted on the deal it's hard to believe anything they promis to do from this point on. 

It is no secret there is no love lost between the Northwest district of the city and Mayor Spencer every since the district voted overwhelmingly for her opponent(State Senator Parker Griffith)  in the last mayoral election.  The reason the district voted for her opponent was because of her neglect of the district in the past.  The district always is the last to get City services, new schools, shopping certers, grocery stores or new subdivisions but the first to get undesirable things like the Rescue Mission. The Mason Dixon line is alive and well in Huntsville.

 



The work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives and the dreams shall never die.~Senator Edward M. Kennedy (D. MA)



[ Parent ]
Offenders in Rescue Missions (0.00 / 0)
 I was a resident in recovery at Lebanon Rescue Mission in Lebanon, PA for several months recently. The directors running this place - Chris Smith and Paul Topping - are making a significant portion of their salaries by housing ex-cons long-term. Other Rescue Missions and Salvation Army locations do the same thing. The Bureau of Prisons pays more than $50 per day to house each ex-offender. Violent offenders and crack heads may place other residents and the community at large at risk, because the directors tend to cater to the ex-cons, cover for them and keep problems under wraps.

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