Green Bay city officials have cited a downtown homeless shelter for allegedly violating occupancy limits, and are asking a judge to impose penalties of up to $500 a day.continue at GBPG
The action follows weeks of scrutiny and debate surrounding the St. John the Evangelist Homeless Shelter, which is operated at 411 St. John St. by the Catholic Diocese of Green Bay.
The citation dated Thursday orders St. John administrators to appear in Green Bay Municipal Court on Jan. 18 to face accusations that the shelter has violated its city operating permit.
Assistant City Attorney Jim Mueller said the shelter could be fined for each day that a violation has occurred starting Dec. 21 — the date cited in the enforcement action. That puts the diocese’s total potential penalty at $3,500, not including court costs.
Mueller, however, also said the city hopes to continue discussions with St. John representatives to resolve the underlying issues.“The parties are going to try to work this out privately,” he said, declining to elaborate.
Seems a bit heartless....
2 comments:
Here's my advice to St. John's: play a little hard ball with the city. Close the shelter completely and post the following on the door.
"Because the City would prefer that you surely freeze outdoors rather than potentially risk danger of a fire hazard we are closing the shelter. We cannot place our volunteers in the position of obeying their conscience to let too many people indoors and disobey the law. We will however be providing warm bus coaches to give you transportation to these other locations.. [here you insert the name, address and phone number of the mayor and council members, the city attorney and even the municipal judges who would be hearing the case (they'd have to recuse themselves)] ...where you should seek admittance from the cold. We have tried to help where the City has abdicated their responsibility to look after their citizens' needs, but the recent hostile action of the City makes it clear our help is no longer wanted."
(providing a warm bus meets the minimum Christian duty of St. John's)
Then you invite the local news crews to film the homeless knocking on the doors of the city officials' homes asking to be let in from the cold. Now, up in Winona some years ago, a fellow refused to open his door to his very drunk ex-girlfriend. She froze to death in her nighty on his lawn. They prosecuted him for something like manslaughter. A friendly DA might be able to provide some prosecutory pressure on the officials if they refused to open their doors. The police couldn't really even arrest these people because they have to take them somewhere and jails are over-crowded. The system just can't handle a situation like that.
You don't let up until
a) the city formally dismisses action against St. John's
b) the City comes up with a permanent solution. They *could* open Park & Rec gymnasiums or even commandeer public school gyms for the nights, but they choose not to. Force them.
Play hard ball. Invite the other shelters to participate.
How bout all of the above, but bus the homeless to the bleeding hearts that don't live in the neighborhood of the shelter, don't deal with the mass of beer cans, human waste, and drunks in their yards. These same people that say there is no problem when they kick everyone out at 9am, and take no responsibility for the people the shelter brings into Green Bay.
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