ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, August 27, 1996 TAG: 9608270092
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DAN CASEY STAFF WRITER
NORTHWEST ROANOKE RESIDENTS who oppose the plan will meet tonight. It isn't the first time someone has tried to put a halfway house for ex-convicts in their neighborhood.
Fearing it would harm efforts to revitalize their community, residents of a Northwest Roanoke neighborhood are fighting plans by a Washington, D.C.-based company to build a halfway house for federal convicts on Melrose Avenue.
Residents of the Edgewood-Morwanda-Summit Hills neighborhood will meet tonight at Edgewood Christian Church on Peck Street to compile petitions they've gathered against the plan.
The proposed three-story building between Fentress and Adams streets would house up to 20 ex-prisoners at a time. It is within walking distance of three elementary schools, a senior citizens' housing complex and a nursing home, neighbors say.
The company, called Trudi Wallace House, has applied for a special zoning exception and a zoning variance that would allow construction of the halfway house on a vacant lot now owned by the YMCA.
A public hearing on the variance and special exception is scheduled for Sept. 10 before the city Board of Zoning Appeals. Tony Martin, vice-president of the Edgewood-Morwanda-Summit Hills Neighborhood Organization, said the group will be there opposing it.
"We've fought long and hard over the last year to bring new businesses to our area," Martin said. "This is just going to sap the life out of our neighborhood if the halfway house comes here."
Loretta Thompson, an administrator for Trudi Wallace House, said the halfway house would shelter only nonviolent federal offenders who would be strictly supervised and subject to regular drug and alcohol screening.
The ex-prisoners would hold jobs in the community and have shelter and food provided for them at the halfway house while they adjust to living outside prison, Thompson said. Ex-convicts would stay in the facility for up to six months and pay 25 percent of their gross income as rent.
Thompson said that in her experience, halfway houses lower rates of repeat offenses by alleviating the stress associated with such things as finding food and shelter when an ex-inmate re-enters society. As a contractor with the federal Bureau of Prisons, Trudi Wallace has operated two homes in the Washington area for 25 years, she said.
"These are all people who are on their way back to the community, regardless of whether they go to a halfway house or to the general area," Thompson said.
Only nonviolent offenders, such as those convicted of federal fraud or drug offenses, would be housed there, Thompson said.
"There will not be any mass murderers, or pedophiles, or anything like that living there," she added.
But Martin said that in meetings with the neighbors, Thompson was unwilling to guarantee that murderers, rapists or child molesters wouldn't end up being housed there. Although offenders may have been in federal prison for nonviolent crimes, they could have previous convictions for violent state crimes, he said.
"Security of families and children is the No.1 concern," he said. Martin noted the halfway house would be within walking distance of Fairview, Westside and Forest Park elementary schools; the Melrose Towers senior citizens' complex; a nursing home; and across Melrose Avenue from a home for the mentally ill.
"We see this as a severe detriment to our property values," Martin said.
Thompson said offenders sent to the house would be people from Roanoke or the Roanoke area who told prison officials they intended to return home after their release. But Martin contended that could mean any offender from Southwest Virginia could wind up here after his or her release.
The Sept. 10 hearing will be the latest chapter in an on-again, off-again battle by Northwest residents against halfway houses for convicts in their neighborhood.
In the face of strong neighborhood opposition and a lawsuit by residents, Roanoke's Board of Zoning Appeals in 1991 reversed its earlier approval for a halfway house in the 4500 block of Melrose that would have housed up to 60 parolees and probationers.
Residents contended that the halfway house would have jeopardized their safety, lowered property values and caused the neighborhood to deteriorate. The company eventually withdrew plans for the facility.
Board Commissioner Louise Williams said the board generally pays close attention to strong community opposition in cases like this one.
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