St. Louis homeless under attack

Editor’s note: The People’s Tribune’s Cathy Talbott interviewed Reverend Larry Rice, President of the New Life Evangelistic Center in St. Louis, MO. New Life runs a homeless shelter (the last major walk-in shelter in mid-America) that houses up to 300 persons on any given night. According to Rev. Rice, “On December 23, the St. Louis Board of Public Service issued an order that may prove to be not only a major assault on the homeless, but also one of the greatest local government attacks on the right of churches to practice their religious beliefs. The order declared that by May 12, 2015, New Life must provide documentation that it has reduced its occupancy to 32 persons (for the past 30 days), or else lose its right to provide any shelter at all. Such a travesty of justice comes as a result of neighborhood gentrification and its push to keep the homeless out of sight and out of mind.”
People’s Tribune: Tell us the history behind your lawsuit against the city of St. Louis.
Reverend Rice: We’ve been in this community since 1975. It was a run-down neighborhood and gradually they started turning around the downtown, taking some of the old buildings and making condominiums. Parking lot owners have discovered gold mines. Seventy million dollars was put into the library, catty-corner from us. As a result, they’ve started to see the properties they bought cheap become very valuable. Now they start to see the homeless as a nuisance. So, 116 condominium owners under the direction of the parking lot owner next to us, signed a petition saying we were a nuisance, citing public urination by the homeless. We tried to put out a porta-potty, but the city wouldn’t give us a permit. We also put out additional lighting, doing everything we could to be good neighbors. After having hearings since September of last year, the mayor-appointed board issued their decree, so we filed a federal lawsuit trying to get a permit extension from the judge. We’re basing it on New Life’s right to fulfill its mission under the Religious Land and Institutional Act, the first and 14th Amendments to the United States Constitution and the Missouri Religious Restoration Act.
PT: How do the police treat the homeless?
Rev. Rice: In St. Louis, the word “homeless” has the same meaning, the same degradation that the “N” word had in the Deep South 50 years ago. Just as courageous people marched, bled and died for the right to vote, and as the people of Ferguson rose up to confront the racism resulting in Michael Brown’s death, we’re calling for the community to rise up against the racism in St. Louis that is going to leave the bodies of hundreds of homeless people in the streets without shelter. They’ll be left with only the lies of the mayor who said he’s going to open 225 beds when 70% of those calling the housing resource hotline last year were turned away.  We’re meeting with Ferguson activists, homeless and others, challenging people to stand up for justice for those who have only the streets to sleep on.
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