At Greensboro City Council’s first meeting of the month, held Tuesday night, Aug. 13, councilmembers voted to file suit against a local church for violating zoning laws, as well as hearing a new proposal from beleaguered local nonprofit H.E.R.O.
Councilmembers voted unanimously to pass Resolution 2024-02, authorizing City Attorney Carolyn Steverson to file suit asking for an injunction against Third Street Church of God; its pastor, the Rev. Kervin Jones; and ABC, Inc., an organization affiliated with the church that provides re-entry counseling for prisoners and former prisoners in Alabama, known as the JumpStart Program.
The church had approached the council years before regarding the program, stating that it wanted to house returning prisoners and provide counseling for them at a home the church owns on Main Street in Greensboro. At that time, after significant public debate, the council voted not to permit the program to operate at that location, citing the fact that it was zoned R-1, for single family residential use.
The church went forward with the program anyway, and had operated undetected for a number of years before a local television station’s feature story on the success of the program alerted the city to its presence.
Councilmembers had discussed the issue with Steverson at their first July meeting, voting at that time to direct their attorney to move forward with legal action against the organizations operating the halfway house. At Tuesday night’s meeting, Steverson said the city had sent a cease-and-desist letter to the church, but that the program continued to operate.
The resolution notes that the program is operating in a residential area without applying for a zoning variance, in violation of the city’s zoning regulations. Steverson is expected to file suit on the city’s behalf in the coming days. The suit will seek to force the facility to cease operating at the Main Street location.
Councilmembers also heard a plea from Pride Forney, who is working as the property manager for H.E.R.O., the Greensboro nonprofit whose debt and real estate woes have made headlines in recent years. The organization acquired considerable property throughout the city, both commercial and residential, and has since struggled under the debt it took on to make those acquisitions. Three properties the organization controls, the former Timberlake clinic, a twostory building known as the Bunkhouse, and property housing Puddle Jumpers, a local daycare service, have been at issue in recent meetings. Forney said Tuesday night that the organization was prepared to take the city to court over those issues.
As part of a grant arrangement involving the Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Alabama Dept. of Economic and Community Affairs, the city deeded the property to HERO in 2008 with the stipulation that if the organization should ever cease to operate as a 501(c)3 nonprofit, or if the properties should ever cease to be used for a public purpose, ownership would revert to the city. As HERO has attempted to unwind some of its real estate holdings in recent years, the legal ownership of those buildings has come into question. HERO, while it continues to file with the IRS as a 501(c)3, has not had an executive director for a number of years, and has not operated the public benefit programs, such as utility assistance for low-income and elderly residents, for which it had become known. In addition, two of the properties, the Bunkhouse and the clinic, have remained vacant for many years.
Forney acknowledged the restrictions set forth in the deed, conceding that the two vacant properties have been empty. “You could say that they are not being used for a public purpose,” she conceded. Forney said HERO’s board members have agreed that those properties should be given back to the city.
“Puddle Jumpers—not a single stipulation has been broken by HERO or by Puddle Jumpers,” she said. Forney said that if the city was relying on the stipulations in the deed to argue that it was owed the unused properties back, those same stipulations indicate that HERO should retain control of the Puddle Jumpers building. Forney said that the owners of Puddle Jumpers, Valerie and Tyler Clements, have offered to buy the building and expand, but that the stipulations in the deed and questions from the city had prevented HERO from conveying the property.
Steverson made the city’s case regarding the stipulations, saying that the city is not legally allowed to give property away unless it serves a public purpose. “I was asked to try to negotiate something to work this out, but you can’t negotiate something if it contravenes the law,” she said. “The issue here is this: can the city give municipal funds to HERO to help it pay down debt? That’s the bottom line. If this building is sold and the money given to HERO, that is municipal funds. That should come back to the municipality.” Steverson noted that Forney had asked the city to approve the sale because it wanted to use the funds to shore up structural damage to the former Western Auto building on Main Street, which it also owns. “I tried to find a way to fund what you sent to us—what you want to do with Western Auto. This is left up to the council if they want to try to find a public purpose in fixing up the Western Auto building. I have to follow the statutes and the law.”
Steverson continued, saying she had consulted with attorneys in Montgomery and Birmingham, and had not found legal grounds to do what HERO had asked the city to do. “If this property was given back to us, if the council wanted to fund some of the things HERO wanted, they could do that. To just outright say, ‘This is your building,’ we can’t do that. I don’t know all of the history, but I do know HERO was trying to get some kind of mortgage” when the city deeded them the building, she said. “If Puddle Jumpers is providing a public purpose, then there is no reason to sell this property because it is providing a public purpose.”
“The city has already deeded the property,” Forney said. “I spoke to a judge and two real estate attorneys. All [the city] did was funnel [the property to HERO],” she said. “I went to ADECA and spoke to Director [Kenneth] Boswell and he said, ‘It’s yours. HERO does have the right to sell it.’ The problem here is y’all would like to retain it. [Puddle Jumpers] would like to purchase it, add on to it. We’re not asking you to pay for any of HERO’s debt. We’re saying this building is legally HERO’s,” she said.
“We’re not going to resolve this issue tonight,” said Mayor J.B. Washington. “This thing has too many moving parts. If we’ve got to go to court, I hate to see it come to that. I was hoping that, you know, y’all could get with [Steverson]. We’ve talked about some things that could possibly happen, but ain’t nobody talking to us. If it has to come to that, then we’re going to court. It’s as simple as that.”
Washington said Steverson had attempted to contact HERO board chair Rev. Stephen Moore, but had not been able to get in touch with him. “This thing is a can of worms,” he said. “This happened in 2015. HERO was trying to get a loan to get some money. What happened to the money, we don’t know. We don’t know what happened to any of it… If this is what it takes to get it resolved, I hate to see it come to that. I know we need that daycare, and if there’s anything we can do to help, we will.”
Forney said HERO was no longer seeking to use the funds to repair the Western Auto building, citing the building’s unsafe conditions. She said bricks had fallen on a worker there recently. “We can’t sell that building to the public,” she said, saying the organization would have to come up with other solutions for it. Instead, she said, HERO wanted to use the proceeds from the sale to repair rental houses it owns on North Ward Street and in Yerby Branch, part of the organization’s low-income housing program, which does still rent homes to local residents. She said five of the organizations’s eleven homes needed repair, and three were currently unlivable due to damage. The money, she said, “won’t fix all of them, but we will fix we can until it runs out.”
“The last time we talked about this issue it seemed to me if you wanted to do the right thing, you’d have to get the board to meet with [Steverson],” said Washington.
“It’ll be the same conversation, but we will happily meet with you, Mrs. Steverson. Before you leave, let’s set a meeting time,” said Forney.
Washington declared discussion closed: “We just need HERO to get their board together with the attorney. Hire an attorney if y’all think you need one. If we don’t have a resolution we’re going to have to go to court. We don’t want to do that. There is a way it can be done. I’m not a lawyer…we need to get that worked out. Your board needs to meet with her, and whoever else needs to be at that meeting.”
