Welcome To Shawnee, Oklahoma: The Worst City In America To Be Homeless

http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2014/04/08/3418314/shawnee-homeless/

BY SCOTT KEYES ON APRIL 8, 2014

Gary Lynn Roy was too poor to live indoors. At night, even when it was cold, even when it snowed, he slept outside. He had no choice.

There are plenty of reasons why he was poor. He’d earn occasional pay as a builder, but construction jobs were too few. Nor did it help that he and his twin brother Larry used to drink heavily together.

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By late 2012, though, Gary seemed to be turning things around. He’d stopped drinking. He’d found a construction job. Things were looking up.

Then, while working on a roof one day, he fell. The impact broke both his legs. He couldn’t move without a walker, so construction work was out of the question. “Sleeping outside is hard enough, but then having a hard time getting around and being cold?” Blankenship told ThinkProgress. “He just had to be miserable.”

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Roy died, as so many homeless do, surrounded by homes. He may have even helped build some of them, knowing he himself couldn’t afford to be in one. Authorities discovered his body the next day, lying in the snow. He would have been 50 today. He’ll forever be 49.

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It didn’t have to be that way. Less than a mile from where Roy froze to death, there was supposed to be a brand new shelter for Shawnee’s homeless to come get a meal, supportive services, and a warm place to rest their heads, especially during the ravages of an Oklahoma winter. Blankenship’s non-profit had recently won a major grant — nearly half a million dollars — to upgrade its facilities into an overnight shelter that would serve the city’s homeless.

And yet the shelter was never built. A dozen blocks away from where Roy slept outside for the final time, there are still no beds. Standing between Roy and dozens of new shelter beds that night was one wealthy city commissioner and a city that has declared all-out war on its homeless residents.

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But in January 2011, it looked as though the shelter situation was about to improve. Seven months before Branscum was killed and two years before Roy’s death, the Rescue Mission won a grant from the Affordable Housing Program, a private organization that funds affordable housing ventures across the country, for $450,000. The money was earmarked to convert the Rescue Mission from a faith-based food pantry and soup kitchen to a full-service shelter, complete with a commercial kitchen, bathrooms and showers, a day center, and enough beds for 23 men, 11 women, and three families.

Blankenship was ecstatic. The project would allow Shawnee to double its capacity to serve the city’s homeless population, and best of all, “it wouldn’t have cost the city a dime,” he told ThinkProgress. To this day, a news story about that grant is the very first thing visitors to Shawnee Rescue Mission’s website read.

All he needed before renovations could begin was a simple administrative tweak from the city commission to change the building’s zoning classification.

Commissioner James Harrod is a wealthy man. Not just wealthy for the Shawnee area, but wealthy for any area. Combing through city deeds and rental websites, ThinkProgress was able to identify at least 58 separate properties throughout Shawnee that he and/or his wife, Kaye Steele Harrod, own. Zillow, an online real estate database, estimates that the collective value of their real estate holdings is more than $3.5 million.

Like most homeowners, not to mention landlords, Harrod and his wife care a great deal about their property values. In fact, the couple once went so far as to sue the City Commission — which Harrod was serving on — in an attempt to block construction of a $4.5 million apartment complex that would serve some low-income residents because it was near some of their properties. The Commission had voted six to one to approve the project in 2003; Harrod cast the sole dissenting vote. Their lawsuit was eventually dismissed.

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The public was on the Rescue Mission’s side. Of the 19 citizens who voiced their opinions about the re-zoning request at the first hearing on September 5th, three-quarters of them spoke in favor, while just five testified against. This overwhelming public support for the Rescue Mission was also evident in letters written to the Planning Commission after it solicited more input from residents. More than 30 letters poured in, favoring the new shelter nearly two-to-one.

One letter from J.R. Kidney, a police officer in Pottawatomie County for nearly two decades, gave a first-hand account of the need for another shelter. “I have had to help many people over the years find shelter, whether it is for a victim of domestic abuse or a homeless family,” Kidney wrote. “There are times when we are unable to get people the help they need at the facilities that are currently in place. Many times we cannot use those facilities for reasons due to their rules, no room etc.” Others like Linda Holley pointed to the inadequate supply of family shelter units in town. “It is heartbreaking to see a family torn apart when their child has to be taken away because there are not enough places in our town for families such as this to be sheltered together.”

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Opponents of the plan, both citizens and officials, center their argument on two claims: first, that there was no need for a second shelter, and second, that the Rescue Mission shelter would hurt nearby property values and this was a cost that outweighed any benefits the project might bring.

Yet there is an inherent contradiction in making these claims simultaneously. Either there wasn’t demand for more shelter beds, in which case there would be little impact on the surrounding neighborhood, or there was demand for more shelter beds, in which case another shelter was necessary.

One of those claiming that no need for additional shelter existed was Harrod. When ThinkProgress asked him about Roy’s death and whether critics who say there aren’t enough shelter beds in Shawnee, especially in the wintertime, are right, he responded, “That’s not true,” claiming that Roy had willfully decided not to go to the Salvation Army because it had too many rules. Similarly, according to the Commission’s staff report, the Rescue Mission “has not provided any demonstration of need” that the Salvation Army can’t cover.

Most interested citizens disagreed with this conclusion, even Salvation Army volunteers. “There simply is too much need for one organization to cover all the problems of the needy and homeless in our area,” one Shawnee Salvation Army volunteer, Raymond H. Mullen, wrote.

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The other reason that residents gave for opposing the Rescue Mission proposal was its supposed effect on property values in the area. One of the primary people leading the charge was Kaye Steele Harrod. “Mrz Lizzies [Harrod’s home rental company] has invested $425,000 to $450,000 within 300 feet of the Mission and now property values have plummeted,” she wrote in a letter to the Commission, saying that tenants had recently moved out “due to their fears and not feeling safe and secure in their homes.” If the Commission were to approve the re-zoning request, she warned, “We would be promoting all homeless to come to Shawnee and receive free room and board.”

The staff report conceded that “a review of research papers and literature provides no information that homeless shelters decrease property values,” but it still argued that, “Based on letters from the public, the current limited operations at the facility (204 N. Louisa),” referring to the Rescue Mission’s food pantry and meal service, “appear to have had major impacts on the neighborhood.”

A review of research papers and literature provides no information that homeless shelters decrease property values.

But who wrote these letters? Of the 12 letters submitted to the Commission, five came from Kaye, Harrod’s daughter, or Harrod’s son-in-law. In other words, nearly half the opposition to the Rescue Mission came from relatives of Harrod.

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ThinkProgress identified four rental properties owned by Kaye that are within two blocks of the Rescue Mission and reviewed property records as well as tax assessments over the past five years to see whether their claim that property values have plummeted had any merit. Zillow estimates that the property values have actually increased an average of 7 percent in the past five years. In addition, the Pottawatomie County Tax Assessor’s office confirmed that the taxable value of each property was unchanged since 2009.

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Either way, the Harrod family’s letters achieved their intended effect. On October 10th, the Planning Commission unanimously rejected the Rescue Mission’s re-zoning application. When the matter came before the City Commission, which had the final say, on November 5th, Commissioner Harrod moved that the re-zoning request be denied and cast the first “no” vote. The Rescue Mission lost six to one. Without permission to re-zone the building, the group had no choice but to return the $450,000 grant. The shelter that seemed like a sure thing at the beginning of the year was now dead.

Harrod wasn’t done, though. Two weeks later, he requested that the Commission place a moratorium on the opening of any new homeless shelter in Shawnee. His daughter was one of the few who testified in favor. The motion passed five to one.

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