Homeless facility withdraws zoning request

Judy Odierna

Thursday, May 8, 2003 | 11:15 a.m.

God in Me Ministry is closing its doors.

Anthony Mosley, the owner of the transitional living facility for the homeless near Martin Luther King and Lake Mead boulevards, said there was no legal argument to allow the shelter to continue operating in the residential neighborhood where it is located.

"You can't beat them," said Mosley of the city of Las Vegas. "I'm saddened, but I know God is a good God and has a reason for everything."

The ministry was seeking to rezone its four adjacent buildings from medium-low residential to civic, which would allow the shelter, which at one time served 80 homeless men, to continue to operate.

After neighbors' complaints, both the Planning Commission and city staff recommended the council deny the change. On Wednesday Mosley withdrew his request and threw in the towel. He's got 30 days to get the remaining men a new place to live.

Mosley said currently nine people would be affected and that the city's Neighborhood Service Department would assist in their placement. Mosley will still be allowed to house 16 people in the four buildings he owns along the 800 block of Hassell and Hart avenues. But as far as he is concerned the ministry is closed.

"We lost," he said. "This is it. Now hundreds won't get food or clothes or housing over a zoning technicality."

Late last year Mosley received notice from the city that he would have to close his facility because it was not properly zoned or licensed to be at its current location. The city was told that Mosley was operating illegally by a neighbor who got into a dispute with the ministry.

God In Me Ministry housed as many as 80 homeless men in small rooms with bunk beds. It was a place for them to stay for 90 days while they tried to find jobs and get back on their feet. Those who got jobs or had other sources of income were required to pay $65 a week to live there.

The agency was started about 1985 by Chaplain Joe Prange. Prange gained national recognition a few years later, when Newsweek magazine named him one of the nation's unsung heroes for his work with the homeless.

Following Prange's death in February 2000, Mosley took over the facility.

However, Mosley did not know that Prange had been denied a zoning change in 1993.

Mosley's attorney Christopher Kaempfer said regardless of the amount of time the facility had operated in the area, the ministry had no legal ground to fight the denial.

"The law says that however long they may be here, if they are in violation of the code they can eventually be asked to leave," Kaempfer said. "Zoning rules got in the way of what he wanted to do."

Councilman Lawrence Weekly, whose ward encompasses the area, said the issue became clouded with politics, bureaucracy and personal attacks.

"I don't like it when people who can't help themselves get caught up in political bureaucracy," Weekly said. "Had we been able to discuss this as a business issue rather than getting personal, it could have a been a win-win ... It could have been handled more professionally with a lot more sensitivity on both sides."

Linda Lera-Randle El, an advocate for the homeless and operator of the Straight From the Streets homeless outreach program, said politics did not belong in the lives of people who had been displaced, though concentrating on what will happen to those who search for assistance from God In Me Ministry should be the new focus.

"They were listed on the HUD website," she said. "People recognized that program, and anytime 70 or even 10 people get displaced, it impacts this community. We're always concerned any time we lose another service because we are always lagging in services."

Mosley said he won't sell the property and may consider reopening the ministry in an area zoned for a shelter in the future.