The commission also voted to close the non-profit homeless shelter’s furniture store and thrift shop.
Martha’s Kitchen chairman Ray Severn said the decision will slowly lead to the shutdown of the agency.
“It’s basically going to shut off our lifeline,” said Severn of the decision to close the men’s dorm and the stores. “We’re not going to have as much money coming in, and we won’t have the males to work in the kitchen.”
The commission voted to close the male dorm and shops by next Monday and will give the agency 90 days from the date of the meeting to make repairs requested since last October to the structures.
Representatives from other agencies in the city and county said they would assist the homeless who are forced to leave the shelter, beginning today. Following the meeting, Ann Thompson, United Way of Central Texas CEO, told Severn she would have representatives meet with residents today to assist them in any way she could.
Bell County Help Center director Judy Morales said a group she was representing, the Heart of Temple Angels Alliance, would be combining efforts with other agencies in the county to set up a triage center starting today at 819 S. Fifth St., where the homeless could be screened, and seek housing elsewhere.
“We will try to interview every tenant,” Morales said during the meeting. “And we will try to look for something that best fits their needs - I think in the end, though, we’re going to find out that a lot of them won’t need our help.”
The vote on the issue was tight, as commission members listened to public opinions labeling the agency as a “flop house.”
City staff also requested the commission close the agency’s kitchen and food pantry - which they decided to leave open, giving a 90-day repair notice for both structures.
Severn said the women’s dorm and kitchen would remain open as long as they could sustain themselves, but could not give a time period as to how long. Martha’s Kitchen can appeal the commission’s decision by filing an appeal in district court within the next 30 days.
For the vote on the furniture store and thrift store, member Tony Gallagher provided the only dissenting votes against the closing, saying he couldn’t “just throw people out on the street” after he heard Severn say closing the stores would lead to the shutdown of the agency.
The commission is made up of five members.
Martha’s Kitchen has been a staple on Avenue G for about 25 years.
Issues the city had with the agency’s structures included electrical, plumbing, structural and safety issues, health conditions, bug and rodents, and sanitary conditions in the kitchen and restroom areas.
Richard Therriault, the city’s director of construction safety, said he had been trying since October to get the leadership of Martha’s Kitchen to get the facilities to a safe and sanitary condition, without much response.
Much of the failure to communicate seems to stem from state laws that order commercial structures that remodel or have repair work to have an asbestos survey done before any work can be completed. Therriault said that when agency representatives, as well as Severn, came up to Temple offices to apply for construction permits, they left without the permits after finding out they would need to have the survey.
During Monday’s meeting, Severn said the cost of the survey could be too much for the agency, indicating that it could cost “hundreds of thousands” of dollars.
Severn defended the agency in the meeting, saying the group had repaired more than 50 of 68 items the city had made requests for.
Martha’s Kitchen also hosted an indigent medical clinic in the bottom level of the men’s dorm, which several agencies speculated could be moved to another building.
Monday’s meeting lasted for almost four hours, and there were plenty of heated exchanges.
Temple Police Department Cpl. Chuck Borgeson said he had “been working the Avenue G area for two and a half years every day.
“(Martha’s Kitchen) is not helping the community,” said Borgeson, who said he lived undercover at the shelter for three weeks while working drug cases in the area. “It’s not helping people get jobs - there are folks that I met there who had lived there for 10 to 15 years.”
Borgerson said he led a unit of 16 police officers last year in an effort to clean up the area around Avenue G, but when officers ended their efforts, “people began to wake up finding (Martha’s Kitchen) tenants sleeping around in their front yards again.”
Michael Johns of the Bell County Public Health District said the group had concerns about asbestos, lead paint and sewage issues in the structures, as well as issues with cat feces in several areas.
Representatives with the district and city said cats were being used by the homeless to keep away rodents and birds.
A representative with Temple Fire and Rescue said when he inspected the structures, he found numerous electrical problems and said the men’s dorm didn’t have feature overhead sprinkler systems.
Several of the commission members seemed to get emotional when discussing their decisions after voting.
“I was struggling a lot with this issue before today,” Pat Massey said. “But I had to vote based on the conditions of the buildings - I know they need to have repairs done, and that they need to get permits.”
